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A 
CHRISTMAS CAROT. 

AND 

THE CRICKET ON 
THE HEARTH 


By CHARLES DICKENS 

ILLUSTRATED BY 

GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS 


# 


THE BAKER ^ TAYLOR COMPANY 
|)n bit 6 beret 

33-37 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET (UNION SQUARE) 
New York 



Copyright, 11)05, ^i/Tut; IUkkh & Tayloij Company 










TA*" Plimpton Press Nort(x)od Mass. U.S.A. 




INTRODUCTION 




THE combined qualities of the realist and the idealist 
which Dickens posssessed to a remarkable degree, 
together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life 
in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling 
toward Christmas, though the privations and hardships of his 
boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with 
this day of days. 

Dickens gave his first formal expression to his Christmas 
thoughts in his series of small books, the first of which was 
the famous "Christmas Carol," the one perfect chrysolite. 
The success of the book was immediate. Thackeray wrote of 
it: "Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as 
this ? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man 
or woman who reads it, a j)ersonaI kindness." 

This volume was put forth in a very attractive manner, 
with illustrations by John Leech, who was the first artist to make 
these characters live, and his drawings were varied and sj)irited. 

There followed u{)on tliis four others: "The C'liimes," 
"The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," and "The 
Haunted Man," witli illustrations on their first appearance by 
Doyle, Maclise, and others. The five are known to-day as the 
" Christmas Books." Of them all the " Carol" is tlu^ best known 
and loved, and "The Cricket on the Hearth," although third in 
the series, is perhaps next in point of popularity, and is es- 
pecially familiar to Americans through Josej)h Jefferson's 
characterisation of Caleb Plummer. 

Dickens seems to have i)ut his whole self into these glowing 
little stories. Whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the 



iv Introduction 



"Christmas Carol" misses its chief charm and lesson, for there 
is a different meaning in the movements of Scrooge and his 
attendant spirits. A new life is brought to Scrooge when he, 
"running to his window, opened it and put out his head. No 
fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold; cold, piping for 
the blood to dance to; Golden sun-light; Heavenly sky; sweet 
fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!" All this 
brightness has its attendant shadow, and deep from the child- 
ish heart comes that true note of pathos, the ever memorable 
toast of Tiny Tim, " God bless Us, Every One ! " " The Cricket 
on the Hearth" strikes a different note. Charmingly, poeti- 
cally, the sweet chirping of the little cricket is associated with 
human feelings and actions, and at the crisis of the story decides 
the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife. 

Dickens's greatest gift was characterization, and no English 
writer, save Shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied 
characters. It would be as absurd to interpret all of these as 
caricatures as to deny Dickens his great and varied powers 
of creation. Dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satiri- 
cal characters, as was his right, for caricature and satire are 
very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence of 
comedy. But there remains a host of characters marked by 
humour and pathos. Yet the pictorial presentation of Dickens's 
characters has ever tended toward the grotesque. The inter- 
pretations in this volume aim to eliminate the grosser phases 
of the caricature in favour of the more human. If the inter- 
pretations seem novel, if Scrooge be not as he has been pic- 
tured, it is because a more human Scrooge was desired — a 
Scrooge not wholly bad, a Scrooge of a better heart, a Scrooge 
to whom the resurrection described in this story was possible. 
It has been the illustrator's whole aim to make these people 
live in some form more fully consistent with their types. 

George Alfred Williams. 

Chatham, N. J. 



CONTENTS 



STAVE 
I 

II 

III 

IV 
V 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



Marley*s Ghost 

The First of the Three Spirits 

The Second of the Three Spirits 

The Last of the Spirits 

The End of it , 



PAGE 
11 

32 
51 
76 
93 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

Chirp the First 1^^ 

Chirp the Second ....•••• ^^^ 
Chirp the Third 1^5 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

" He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church." Frontispiece 

Facing 
Page 

" A Merry Christmas, Uncle 1 God save you ! " cried a cheerful 

voice." ......... 14 / 

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, 

would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. . . 26 ^ 

" You recollect tJie way ? " inquired the spirit. " Remember it I " 

cried Scrooge, with fervour ; " / could walk it blindfold." . 36 

"Why, it's AH Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. '"It's dear old 

honest AH Baba / " . . . . . . , 38 ' 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

" Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient, 

willing eyes." . . . . . . . .103 

"A dot and — " here he glanced at the baby — "-4 dot and carry — 
/ won't say it, for fear I should spoil it ; but I was very near 
a joke." ......... 108 

Tilly Slowboy 112 

" That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside I Upright as 

a milestone." . . • • • • • 118 

When suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney 
with a glow of light ; and the Cricket on the Hearth began 



to chirp ! 



166 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

AND 

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

3n Pro0e 

BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS 

STAVE ONE 

marley's ghost 

MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt 
whatever about that. The register of his burial 
was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the under- 
taker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's 
name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his 
hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowl- 
edge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I 
might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the 
deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom 
of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands 
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will, there- 
fore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as 
dead as a door-nail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead ? Of course he did. How could 
it be otherwise.^ Scrooge and he were partners for I don't 
know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole 



V 



12 A Christmas Carol 

administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole 
friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dread- 
fully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man 
of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it 
with an undoubted bargain. 

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the 
point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. 
This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can 
come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not 
perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play 
began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking 
a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ram- 
parts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gen- 
tleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say St. 
Paul's Church-yard, for instance — literally to astonish his son's 
weak mind. 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it 
stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge 
and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. 
Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, 
and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It 
was all the same to him. 

Oh ! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge ! 
a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, 
old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had 
ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and 
solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, 
nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; 
made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly 
in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on 
his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low tem- 
perature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog- 
days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. 

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No 



=q55 



A Christmas Carol 13 

warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind 
that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent 
upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul 
weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, 
and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over 
him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely 
and Scrooge never did. 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome 
looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you.^ When will you come 
to see me.^" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no 
children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever 
once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, 
of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know 
him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners 
into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails 
as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, 
dark master!" 

But what did Scrooge care ? It was the very thing he liked. 
To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all 
human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing 
ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. 

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, on 
Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. 
It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could 
hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, 
beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet 
upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City clocks had 
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already — it had not 
been light all day — and candles were flaring in the windows 
of the neighbouring oflices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable 
brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and key- 
hole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of 
the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To 
see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, 



14 A Christmas Carol 



one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and was 
brewing on a large scale. 

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he 
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell 
beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a 
very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller 
that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for 
Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the 
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would 
be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his 
white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in 
which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed. 

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheer- 
ful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came 
upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had 
of his approach. 

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" 

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and 
frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his 
face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath 
smoked again. 

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. 
"You don't mean that, I am sure.?" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right 
have you to be merry.? What reason have you to be merry.? 
You're poor enough." 

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right 
have you to be dismal ? What reason have you to be morose ? 
You're rich enough." 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the 
moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Hum^ 
bug!" 

"Don't be cross,^ uncle!" said the nephew. 

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in 




"A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. 



A Christmas Carol 15 



such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon 
merry Christmas! What's Christmas-time to you but a time 
for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a 
year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your 
books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen 
of months presented dead against you ? If I could work my 
will," said Scrooge indignantly, *' every idiot who goes about 
with * Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his 
own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his 
heart. He should!" 

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew. 

"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas 
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." 

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't 
keep it." 

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good 
may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!" 

"There are many things from which I might have derived 
good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the 
nephew; "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have 
always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round — 
apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if 
anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good 
time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I 
know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women 
seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to 
think of people below them as if they really were fellow-pas- 
sengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on 
other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put 
a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done 
me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming 
immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and 
extinguished the last frail spark for ever. 



i6 A Christmas Carol 

"Let me hear another sound from ?/ow," said Scrooge, "and 
you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're 
quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. 
"I wonder you don't go into Parliament." 

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow." 

Scrooge said that he would see him Yes, indeed he 

did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that 
he would see him in that extremity first. 

"But why.?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why.?^" 

"Why did you get married.?" said Scrooge. 

"Because I fell in love." 

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were 
the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry 
Christmas. "Good afternoon!" 

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that 
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now.?" 

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot 
we be friends.?" 

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

" I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We 
have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I 
have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my 
Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle 1" 

" Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

"And A Happy New Year!" 

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwith- 
standing. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greet- 
ings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer 
than Scrooge ; for he returned them cordially. 

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge, who overheard 
him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and 
family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam." 



A Christmas Carol 17 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two 
other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to 
behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. 
They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. 

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentle- 
men, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing 
Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley.?" 

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge 
replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night." 

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his 
surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his creden- 
tials. 

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At 
the ominous word "liberality" Scrooge frowned, and shook his 
head, and handed the credentials back. 

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the 
gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable 
that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and 
destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thou- 
sands are in want of common necessaries ; hundreds of thousands 
are in want of common comforts, sir." 

"Are there no prisons.'^" asked Scrooge. 

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the 
pen again. 

"And the Union workhouses.?" demanded Scrooge. "Are 
they still in operation.?" 

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I 
could say they were not." 

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then .?" 
said Scrooge. 

"Both very busy, sir." 

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that some- 
thing had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said 
Scrooge. "I am very glad to hear it." 



i8 A Christmas Carol 



"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian 
cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentle- 
man, " a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the 
Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose 
this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly 
felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for .^" 

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. 

"You wish to be anonymous.^" 

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me 
what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry 
myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people 
merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned 
— they cost enough : and those who are badly off must go there." 

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die." 

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better 
do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse 
me — I don't know that." 

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman. 

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough 
for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere 
with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good 
afternoon, gentlemen ! ' ' 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, 
the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an 
improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper 
than was usual with him. 

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people 
ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go be- 
fore horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The 
ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always 
peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the 
wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the 
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth 
were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became 



A Christmas Carol 19 

intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some 
labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had Hghted a great 
fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys 
were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes 
before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in soli- 
tude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned to mis- 
anthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs 
and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made 
pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' 
trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which 
it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as 
bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the 
stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his 
fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's 
household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined 
five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and blood- 
thirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his 
garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the 
beef. 

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. 
If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose 
with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar 
weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. 
The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by 
the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at 
Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; but, at 
the first sound of 

" God bless you, merry gentleman, 
May nothing you dismay!" 

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the 
singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even 
more congenial frost. 

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. 



20 A Christmas Carol 

With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly 
admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who in- 
stantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat. 

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge. 

"If quite convenient, sir." 

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If 
I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, 
I'll be bound.?" 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill used when 
I pay a day's wages for no work." 

The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty- 
fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to 
the chin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be 
here all the earlier next morning." 

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out 
with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the 
clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below 
his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on 
Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour 
of its beintr Christmas-eve, and then ran home to Camden Town 
as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's butf . 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy 
tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the 
rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. 
He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased 
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering 
pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, 
that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there 
when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other 
houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old 
enouc]:h now, and drearv enough; for nobodv lived in it but 
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard 



A Christmas Carol 21 



was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was 
fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about 
the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the 
Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the 
threshold. 

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular 
about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. 
It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, 
during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had 
as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the 
City of London, even including — which is a bold word — the 
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in 
mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley 
since his last mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that 
afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, 
how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock 
of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any 
intermediate process of change — not a knocker, but Marley's 
face. 

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the 
other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, 
like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or fero- 
cious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look : with ghostly 
spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was 
curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes 
were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its 
livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in 
spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of 
its own expression. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a 
knocker again. 

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not 
conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger 
from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the 



22 A Christmas Carol 



key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and 
lighted his candle. 

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut 
the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half 
expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking 
out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, 
except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 
"Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang. 

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant's 
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its 
own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He 
fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs : 
slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went. 

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a 
good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parlia- 
ment; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that 
staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards 
the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it 
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; 
which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a 
locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a- 
dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the 
entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with 
Scrooge's dip. 

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness 
is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy 
door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He 
had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. 

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should 
be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small 
fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan 
of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. No- 
body under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing- 



A Christmas Carol 23 

gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against 
the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, 
two fish baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; 
double locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus 
secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dress- 
ing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before 
the fire to take his gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. 
He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he 
could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a hand- 
ful of fuel. The fire-place was an old one, built by some Dutch 
merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch 
tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains 
and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters. Queens of Sheba, Angelic 
messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather 
beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in 
butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and 
yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient 
Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth 
tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture 
on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, 
there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every 
one. 

''Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room. 

After several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head 
back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a 
disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for 
some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest 
story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with 
a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this 
bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it 
scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did 
every bell in the house. 



24 A Christmas Carol 



This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it 
seemed an hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. 
They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, 
as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks 
in the wine merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to 
have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as 
dragging chains. 

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then 
he heard the noise much louder on the floors below ; then coming 
up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door. 

"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it." 

His colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came 
on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before 
his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as 
though it cried, "I know him! Marley's Ghost!" and fell again. 

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual 
waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, 
like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. 
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, 
and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge 
observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, 
deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was trans- 
parent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through 
his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. 

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, 
but he had never believed it until now. 

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the 
phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; 
though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and 
marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its 
head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he 
was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. 

"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "What 
do you want with me ?" 



A Christmas Carol 25 

"Much!" — Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 

**Who are you?" 

"Ask me who I was,'' 

"Who were you, then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice. 
"You're particular, for a shade." He was going to say "to a 
shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate. 

"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." 

"Can you — can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking 
doubtfully at him. 

"lean." 

"Do it, then." 

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether 
a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take 
a chair; and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it 
might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. 
But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire-place, 
as if he were quite used to it. 

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. 

"I don't," said Scrooge. 

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that 
of your own senses ?" 

"I don't know," said Scrooge. 

"Why do you doubt your senses ?" 

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A 
slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may 
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, 
a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy 
than of grave about you, whatever you are!" 

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did 
he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, 
that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own 
attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice 
disturbed the very marrow in his bones. 

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a 



26 A Christmas Carol 

moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. 
There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being 
provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge 
could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case ; for though 
the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and 
tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. 

"You see this toothpick.?" said Scrooge, returning quickly 
to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though 
it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from 
himself. 

"I do," replied the Ghost. 

"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge. 

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding." 

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow this, and 
be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all 
of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug!" 

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain 
with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on 
tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But 
how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off 
the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear in- 
doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! 

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before 
his face. 

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do you 
trouble me.?" 

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you 
believe in me or not.?" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk 
the earth, and why do they come to me .?" 

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that 
the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow- 
men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth 
in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to 



A Christmas Carol 27 

wander through the world — oh, woe is me ! — and witness 
what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and 
turned to happiness!" 

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and 
wrung its shadowy hands. 

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembUng. "Tell me 
why?" 

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I 
made it link by link, and yard by yard ; I girded it on of my own 
free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it. Is its pattern 
strange to you?''' 

Scrooge trembled more and more. 

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and 
length of the strong coil you bear yourself ? It was full as heavy 
and as long as this, seven Christmas-eves ago. You have 
laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!" 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation 
of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms 
of iron cable, but he could see nothing. 

"Jacob!" he said imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell 
me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob!" 

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from 
other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other 
ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I 
would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot 
rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never 
walked beyond our counting-house — mark me; — in life my 
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money- 
changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!" 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, 
to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what 
the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his 
eyes, or getting off his knees. 

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge 



28 A Christmas Carol 

observed in a business-like manner, though with humility and 
deference. 

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated. 

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling all 
the time.'*" 

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. 
Incessant torture of remorse." 

"You travel fast.^" said Scrooge. 

" On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in 
seven years," said Scrooge. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked 
its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the 
Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. 

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, 
"not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal crea- 
tures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of 
which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any 
Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it 
may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of 
usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make 
amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! 
Oh, such was I!" 

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," 
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. 

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my 
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, 
all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of 
water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" 

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause 
of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground 
again. 

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer 



A Christmas Carol 29 

most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with 
my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star 
which led the Wise Men to a poor abode ? Were there no poor 
homes to which its light would have conducted me F" 

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going 
on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. 

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly gone." 

**I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon me! 
Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!" 

" How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can 
see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and 
many a day." 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped 
the perspiration from his brow. 

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. 
" I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and 
hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, 
Ebenezer." 

"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. 
"Thankee!" 

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three 
Spirits." 

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had 
done. 

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he 
demanded in a faltering voice. 

"It is." 

"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge. 

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to 
shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow when the 
bell tolls One." 

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob .'^'^ 
hinted Scrooge. 

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. 



30 A Christmas Carol 

The third, upon the next night when the hist stroke of Twelve 
has eeasod to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, 
for your own sake, you remember what has {)assed between us!" 

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper 
from the table, and bound it round its head as before. Scroosre 
knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were 
brouglit together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his 
eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in 
an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm. 

The apparition walked backward from him; and, at every 
step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the 
spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to 
approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of 
each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to 
come no nearer. Scrooge stop})ed. 

Not so nuich in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on 
the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises 
in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings 
inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The S{)ectre, after 
listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated 
out upon the bleak, dark night. 

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. 
He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and 
thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one 
of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might 
be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. 
INlany had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He 
had been (|uite familiar with one old ghost in a white waist- 
coat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who 
cried }Mteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with 
an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery 
with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for 
good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. 



A Christmas Carol 31 

Wliether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded 
them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded 
together; and the night became as it had been when he walked 
home. 

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which 
the Ghost had entered. It was double locked, as he had locked 
it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He 
tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. And 
being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of 
the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull con- 
versation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need 
of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell 
asleep upon the instant. 



STAVE TWO 

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

WHEN Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of 
bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent win- 
dow from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeav- 
ouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the 
chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So 
he listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six 
to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; 
then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. 
The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. 
Twelve! 

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most 
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and 
stopped. 

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have 
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't 
possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is 
twelve at noon!" 

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, 
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the 
frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could 
see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make 
out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that 
there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a 
great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had 
beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This 



Christmas Carol 33 



was a great relief, because "Three days after sight of this First 
of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so 
forth, would have become a mere United States security if there 
were no days to count by. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and 
thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The 
more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he 
endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. 

Mar ley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he 
resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a 
dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, 
to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked 
all through, *'Was it a dream or not.?" 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three 
quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the 
Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. 
He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, con- 
sidering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, 
this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once con- 
vinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed 
the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"Half past," said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"The hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and nothing 
else!" 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with 
a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the 
room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. 



34 



A Christmas Carol 



The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a 
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, 
but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his 
bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half- 
recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly 
visitor who drew them : as close to it as I am now to you, and I 
am standing in the spirit at your elbow. 

It was a strange figure — like a child : yet not so like a child 
as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, 
which gave him the appearance of having receded from the 
view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, 
which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if 
with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the 
tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and 
muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon 
strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like 
those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest 
white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen 
of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly 
in its hand: and, in singular contradiction of that wintry em- 
blem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the 
strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head 
there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was 
visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in 
its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now 
held under its arm. 

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing 
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled 
and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what 
was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure 
itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one 
arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs 
without a head, now a head without a body : of which dissolving 
parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein 



A Christmas Carol 35 



they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be 
itself again; distinct and clear as ever. 

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" 
asked Scrooge. 

"lam!" 

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, in- 
stead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. 

"Who and what are you ?" Scrooge demanded. 

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." 

"Long Past .5^" inquired Scrooge; observant of its dwarfish 
stature. 

"No. Your past." 

Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if any- 
body could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see 
the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered. 

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out, 
with worldly hands, the light I give ? Is it not enough that you 
are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me 
through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow.?" 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any 
knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any 
period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business 
brought him there. 

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost. 

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help 
thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more 
conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him think- 
ing, for it said immediately: 

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!" 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently 
by the arm. 

"Rise! and walk with me!" 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the 
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; 



36 A Christmas Carol 

that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below 
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing- 
gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that 
time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not 
to be resisted. He rose: but, finding that the Spirit made 
towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication. 

*'I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall." 

*' Bear but a touch of my hand thercy'' said the Spirit, laying 
it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this!" 

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, 
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. 
The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be 
seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it 
was a clear, cold, winter day, with the snow upon the ground. 

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together 
as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was 
a boy here!" 

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though 
it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to 
the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thou- 
sand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thou- 
sand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long for- 
gotten ! 

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And whxat is 
that upon your cheek .^" 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, 
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where 
he would. 

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit. 

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could walk 
it bhndfold." 

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed 
the Ghost. " Let us go on." 

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every 



A Christmas Carol 37 



gate, and post, and tree, until a little market-town appeared in 
the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. 
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with 
boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs 
and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great 
spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so 
full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it. 

*' These are but shadows of the things that have been," said 
the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us." 

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge 
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond 
all bounds to see them ? Why did his cold eye glisten, and his 
heart leap up as they went past ? Why was he filled with glad- 
ness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as 
they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes ? 
What was merry Christmas to Scrooge.^ Out upon merry 
Christmas ! What good had it ever done to him ? 

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A 
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still." 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane, and soon 
approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather- 
cock surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it. 
It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes : for the spacious 
offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their 
windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and 
strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were 
overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient 
state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through 
the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, 
cold, and vast. There was an earthly savour in the air, a chilly 
bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too 
much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. 

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door 



38 A Christmas Carol 



at the back of the house. It opened before them, and dis- 
closed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by 
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely 
boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon 
a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used 
to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scufl3e 
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the haK- 
thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh anio: 
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swin. 
ing of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clickiiig in the firt, 
but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening H^jfr^'je, and 
gave a freer passage to his teal's. 

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his 
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in 
foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood 
outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading 
by the bridle an ass laden with wood. 

"Why, it*s Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's 
dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas- 
time when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did 
come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valen- 
tine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there they 
go! And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, 
asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him.^ And the 
Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii: there he is 
upon his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What busi- 
ness had he to be married to the Princess.'^" 

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature 
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laugh- 
ing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; 
would have been a surprise to his business friends in the City, 
indeed. 

"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and 



A Christmas Carol 39 

yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of 
his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when 
he came home again after sailing round the island. *Poor 
Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?* The 
man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the 
Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to 
the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!" 

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual 
character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor boy!" and 
cried again. 

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, 
and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but 
it's too late now." 

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit. 

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy 
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like 
to have given him something: that's all." 

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand : saying, 
as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!" 

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room 
became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, 
the windows cracked ; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, 
and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was 
brought about Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only 
knew that it was quite correct: that everything had happened 
so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had 
gone home for the jolly holidays. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despair- 
ingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shak- 
ing of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. 

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, 
came darting in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often 
kissing him, addressed him as her "dear, dear brother." 

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the 



40 A Christmas Carol 

child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 
"To bring you home, home, home!" 

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy. 

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home for good 
and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder 
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so 
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I 
was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; 
and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring 
you. And you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her 
eyes; "and are never to come back here; but first we're to be 
together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in 
all the world." 

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy. 

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his 
head; but, being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe 
to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish 
eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loath to go, accom- 
panied her. 

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master 
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the school- 
master himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious 
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by 
shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister 
into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour that ever was 
seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terres- 
trial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he 
produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of 
curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those 
dainties to the young people: at the same time sending out a 
meagre servant to offer a glass of "something" to the postboy 
who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but, if it was the 
same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master 
Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise. 



A Christmas Carol 41 



the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; 
and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep ; the quick 
wheels dashing the hoar frost and snow from off the dark leaves 
of the evergreens like spray. 

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have 
withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!'* 

"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not 
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!" 

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think, 
children." 

"One child," Scrooge returned. 

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!" 

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, 
"Yes." 

Although they had but that moment left the school 
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a 
city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where 
shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the 
strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain 
enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was 
Christmas-time again; but it was evening, and the streets were 
lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked 
Scrooge if he knew it. 

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here?" 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, 
sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches 
taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, 
Scrooge cried in great excitement: 

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive 
again!" 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, 
which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; 
adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, 



42 A Christmas Carol 



from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out, in a 
comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: 

" Yo ho, there.' Ebenezer! Dick!" 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly 
in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice. 

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!'* said Scrooge to the Ghost. 
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to 
me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!" 

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to- 
night. Christmas-eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have 
the shuttei*s up," cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his 
hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!" 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! 
They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two, three 
— had 'em up in their places — four, five, six — barred 'em 
and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and came back before 
you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses. 

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high 
desk with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's 
have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!" 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared 
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking 
on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, 
as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor 
was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped 
upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and 
dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see upon a 
winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the 
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty 
stomachaches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial 
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. 
In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In 
came all the young men and women employed in the business. 



A Christmas Carol 



43 



In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came 
the cook, with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In 
came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not 
having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself 
behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have 
had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one 
after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some 
awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any 
how and every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at 
once; hands half round and back again the other way; down 
the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of 
affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the 
wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon as they 
got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help 
them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, 
clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!'* 
and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially 
provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappear- 
ance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers 
yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on 
a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him 
out of sight, or perish. 

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more 
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there 
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there wa^ a great piece of 
Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. 
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and 
Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of 
man who knew his business better than you or I could have told 
it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fez- 
ziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; 
with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four 
and twenty pair of partners ; people who were not to be trifled 
with ; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking. 



44 A Christmas Carol 

But if they had been twice as many — ah ! four times — old 
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. 
Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every 
sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and 
I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's 
calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. 
You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would 
become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezzi- 
wig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both 
hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the- 
needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut" — cut so 
deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon 
his feet again without a stagger. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. 
Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side 
the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as 
he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. 
When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did 
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and 
the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter 
in the back-shop. 

During the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like a man 
out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with 
his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered 
everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest 
agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his 
former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remem- 
bered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking 
full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very 
clear. 

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly 
folks so full of gratitude." 

"Small!" echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices. 



A Christmas Carol 45 

who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and, 
when he had done so, said: 

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your 
mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he 
deserves this praise?" 

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and 
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. "It 
isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or un- 
happy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a 
toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so 
slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 
'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great 
as if it cost a fortune." 

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost. 

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge. 

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted. 

"No," said Scrooge, "no. I should like to be able to say a 
word or two to my clerk just now. That's all." 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance 
to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side 
in the open air. 

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!" 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he 
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again 
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime 
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; 
but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There 
was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed 
the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the 
growing tree would fall. 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a 
mourning dress : in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled 
in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. 



46 A Christmas Carol 

"It matters little," she said softly. "To you, very little. 
Another idol has displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort 
you in time to come as I would have tried to do, I have no just 
cause to grieve." 

"What Idol has displaced you.?" he rejoined. 

"A golden one." 

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. 
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there 
is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pur- 
suit of wealth!" 

"You fear the world too much," she answered gently. "All 
your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond 
the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler 
aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion. Gain, 
engrosses you. Have I not?" 

"What then ?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much 
wiser, what then.? I am not changed towards you." 

She shook her head. 

"Ami?" 

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were 
both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we could 
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are 
changed. When it was made you were another man." 

"I was a boy," he said impatiently. 

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," 
she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when 
we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. 
How often and how keenly I have thought of this I will not say. 
It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you." 

"Have I ever sought release ?" 

"In words. No. Never." 

"In what, then?" 

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another at- 
mosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything 



A Christmas Carol 47 



that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this 
had never been between us," said the girl, looking mildly, but 
with steadiness, upon him, "tell me, would you seek me out 
and try to win me now ? Ah, no!" 

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite 
of himself. But he said, with a struggle, "You think not." 

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered. 
"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I 
know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were 
free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you 
would choose a dowerless girl — you who, in your very confidence 
with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a 
moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to 
do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would 
surely follow.? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for 
the love of him you once were." 

He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, 
she resumed. 

"You may — the memory of what is past half makes me 
hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and 
you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable 
dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May 
you be happy in the life you have chosen!" 

She left him, and they parted. 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct me 
home. Why do you delight to torture me .?" 

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost. 

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more! I don't wish to see 
it. Show me no more!" 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and 
forced him to observe what happened next. 

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very 
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter 
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge 



48 AChristmasCarol 

believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, 
sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was per- 
fectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than 
Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike 
the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children 
conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting 
itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond 
belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother 
and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and 
the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged 
by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have 
given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so 
rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have 
crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and, for the precious 
little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! 
to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, 
bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have ex- 
pected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and 
never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, 
I own, to have touched her lips ; to have questioned her, that she 
might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her 
downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves 
of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: 
in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the 
lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to 
know its value. 

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush 
immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered 
dress, was borne towards it in the centre of a flushed and boister- 
ous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home 
attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. 
Th^en the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that 
was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with 
chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown- 



A Christmas Carol 



49 



paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the 
neck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affec- 
tion! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the develop- 
ment of every package was received! Tlic terrible announce- 
ment tliat the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's 
frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of 
having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! 
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and 
gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is 
enough that by degrees, the children and their emotions got out 
of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the 
house, where they went to bed, and so subsided. 

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, 
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning 
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own 
fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite 
as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, 
and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his 
sight grew very dim indeed. 

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, 
"I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon." 

"Who was it?" 

"Guess!" 

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the same 
breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge." 

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it 
was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help 
seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; 
and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe." 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from 
this place." 

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," 
said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame 
me!" 



50 A Christmas Carol 

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!" 
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon 
him with a face in which in some strange way there were frag- 
ments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. 
"Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!" 
In the struggle — if that can be called a struggle in which 
the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was un- 
disturbed by any effort of its adversary — Scrooge observed 
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting 
that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher cap, 
and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher 
covered its whole form; but, though Scrooge pressed it down 
with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed 
from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground. 

He was conscious of being exliausted, and overcome by an 
irresistible drowsiness ; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. 
He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; 
and had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy 
sleep. 



STAVE THREE 

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and 
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had 
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of 
One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right 
nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference 
with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob 
Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned uncom- 
fortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains 
this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside 
with his own hands, and, lying down again, established a sharp 
look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the 
Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be 
taken by surprise and made nervous. 

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves 
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually 
equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity 
for adventure by observing that they are good for anything 
from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite 
extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and compre- 
hensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge 
quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe 
that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, 
and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have 
astonished him very much. 

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by 
any means prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the 



52 A Christmas Carol 

bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a 
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter 
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time he lay 
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, 
which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; 
and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen 
ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would 
be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that 
very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, 
without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, 
he began to think — as you or I would have thought at first; 
for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows 
what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably 
have done it too — at last, I say, he began to think that the 
source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining 
room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. 
This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, 
and shuffled in his slippers to the door. 

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange 
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. 
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls 
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a 
perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries 
glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected 
back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered 
there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney 
as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's 
tinae, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. 
Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, 
geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, 
long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels 
of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy 
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething 



A Christmas Carol 53 

bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their dehcious 
steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, 
glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike 
Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge 
as he came peeping round the door. 

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know 
me better, man!" 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this 
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and, 
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to 
meet them. 

*'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. 
"Look upon me!" 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple 
deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This 
garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast 
was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any 
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the 
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other cover- 
ing than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. 
Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, 
its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its uncon- 
strained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle 
was an antique scabbard ; but no sword was in it, and the ancient 
sheath was eaten up with rust. 

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed 
the Spirit. 

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it. 

"Have never walked forth with the younger members of 
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers 
born in these later years.?" pursued the Phantom. 

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have 
not. Have you had many brothers. Spirit.?" 

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost. 



54 



A Christmas Carol 



*'A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Scrooge. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, *' conduct me where 
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a 
lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to 
teach me, let me profit by it." 

"Touch my robe!" 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, 
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the 
fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the 
city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was 
severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant 
kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front 
of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it 
was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into 
the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. 

The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows 
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon 
the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground ; which last 
deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy 
wheels of carts and waggons ; furrows that crossed and recrossed 
each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched 
off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick 
yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the 
shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, 
half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of 
sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one 
consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts ' 
content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the 
town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the 
clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have en- 
deavoured to diffuse in vain. 



A Christmas Carol ^^ 



For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops 
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the 
parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball 
— better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest — laughing 
heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. 
The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers* 
were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot- 
bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly 
old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the 
street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown- 
faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of 
their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves 
in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced 
demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and 
apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches 
of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle 
from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water 
gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and 
brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the 
woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered 
leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting 
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great com- 
pactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseech- 
ing to be carried home in paper bags, and eaten after dinner. 
The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice 
fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded 
race, appeared to know that there was something going on; 
and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world 
in slow and passionless excitement. 

The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with per- 
haps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such 
glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the 
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted 
company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and 



56 A Christmas Carol 

down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea 
and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins 
were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the 
sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so 
delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten 
sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subse- 
quently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, 
or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their 
highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and 
in its Christmas dress ; but the customers were all so hurried and 
so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled 
up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets 
wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came 
running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the 
like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer 
and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts 
with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been 
their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas 
daws to peck at if they chose. 

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and 
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in 
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the 
same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and 
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners 
to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared 
to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge be- 
side him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as 
their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from 
his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for 
once or twice, when there were angry words between some 
dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops 
of water on them from it, and their good-humour was restored 
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christ- 
mas-day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! 



A Christmas Carol ^y 



In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and 
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and 
the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above 
each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones 
were cooking too. 

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your 
torch ?" asked Scrooge. 

"There is. My own." 

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked 
Scrooge. 

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most." 

"Why to a poor one most.^" asked Scrooge. 

"Because it needs it most." 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge after a moment's thought. "I 
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, 
should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent 
enjoyment." 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every 
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to 
dine at all," said Scrooge; "wouldn't you.^" 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said 
Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing." 

"/ seek!" exclaimed the Spirit. 

" Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, 
or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge. 

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the 
Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of 
passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in 
our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as 
if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their 
doings on themselves, not us." 

Scrooge promised that he would ; and they went on, invisible, 



58 A Christmas Carol 

as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a 
remarkable quaHty of the Ghost (wliich Scrooge had observed 
at the baker's), that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could 
acconimodate himself to anyplace with ease; and that he stood 
beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural 
creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. 

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Sj)irit had in show- 
ing oil" this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, 
hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led 
him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took 
Scrooge with him, hohling to his robe; and, on the threshold of 
the door, the S})irit smiled, and sto[)ped to bless Bob Cratchit's 
dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! 
Bob had but fifteen **Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on 
Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the 
Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four- roomed house! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out 
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which 
are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid 
the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, 
also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit |)lunged a 
fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and, getting the corners of 
his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred 
upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, re- 
joiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show 
his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller 
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside 
the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their 
own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, 
these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted 
Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although 
his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow 
potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to 
be let out and peeled. 



A Christmas Carol 



59 



"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said Mrs. 
Cratchit. " And your brother, Tiny Tim ? And Martha warn't 
as late last Christmas-day by half an hour!" 

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she 
spoke. 

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. 
"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!" 

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!'* 
said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her 
shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. 

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the 
girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!" 

"Well! never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. 
Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a 
warm. Lord bless ye!" 

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young 
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, 
hide!" 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, 
with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, 
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up 
and brushed to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. 
Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs 
supported by an iron frame! 

"Why, Where's our Martha.?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking 
round. 

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"Not coming!" said Bob with a sudden declension in his 
high spirits ; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from 
church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon 
Christmas-day!" 

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only 
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet 
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits 



6o A Christmas Carol 

hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that 
he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. 

"And how did httle Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit 
when she had raUied Bob on his creduhty, and Bob had hugged 
his daughter to his heart's content. 

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow, he 
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the 
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, 
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he 
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember 
upon Christmas-day who made lame beggars walk and blind 
men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and 
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong 
and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back 
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by 
his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, 
turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they were capable of 
being made more shabby — compounded some hot mixture in 
a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and 
put it on the hob to simmer. Master Peter and the two ubiquitous 
young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon 
returned in high procession. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose 
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a 
black swan was a matter of course — and, in truth, it was some- 
thing very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy 
(ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master 
Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda 
sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; 
Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; 
the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting 
themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed 



A Christmas Carol 6i 

spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose be- 
fore their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set 
on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless 
pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving- 
knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, 
and when the long-expected gush of stuflSng issued forth, one 
murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny 
Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table 
with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah ! 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe 
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, 
size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. 
Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient 
dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with 
great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the 
dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had 
enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped 
in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being 
changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — 
too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up, and 
bring it in. 

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should 
break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over 
the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry 
with the goose — a supposition at which the two young Cratchits 
became livid ! All sorts of horrors were supposed. 

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of 
the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. 
A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to 
each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the 
pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but 
smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, 
so hard and firm, blazing in half of half- a- quartern of ignited 
brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. 



62 A Christmas Carol 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly 
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. 
Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the 
weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts 
about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say 
about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small 
pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to 
do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a 
thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the 
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug 
being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were 
put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. 
Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what 
Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob 
Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers 
and a custard cup without a handle. 

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as 
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with 
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and 
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: 

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" 

Which all the family re-echoed. 

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. 
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, 
and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might 
be taken from him. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt 
before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live." 

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor 
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully pre- 
served. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the 
child will die." 



A Christmas Carol 63 



"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will 
be spared." 

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none 
other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. 
What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and de- 
crease the surplus population." 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the 
Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. 

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not ada- 
mant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What 
the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men 
shall live, what men shall die ? It may be that, in the sight of 
Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions 
like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the 
leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers 
in the dust!" 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, 
cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily 
on hearing his own name. 

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob. "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the 
Founder of the Feast!" 

"The Founder of the Feast, indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, red- 
dening. " I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my 
mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.'* 

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas-day." 

"It should be Christmas-day, I am sure," said she, "on 
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, 
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! No- 
body knows it better than you do, poor fellow!" 

"My dear!" was Bob's mild answer. "Christmas-day." 

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said 
Mrs. Cratchit, " not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christ- 
mas and a happy New Year! He'll be very merry and very 
happy, I have no doubt!" 



64 A Christmas Carol 



The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of 
their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim 
drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge 
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a 
dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five 
minutes. 

After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than 
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done 
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his 
eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full 
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed 
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; 
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between 
his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular invest- 
ments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that 
bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a 
milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, 
and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she 
meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to- 
morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had 
seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord 
*'was much about as tall as Peter"; at which Peter pulled up his 
collars so high, that you couldn't have seen his head if you had 
been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round 
and round; and by-and-by they had a song, about a lost child 
travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little 
voice, and sang it very well indeed. 

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a 
handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were 
far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter 
might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn- 
broker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one 
another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, 
and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's 



A Christmas Carol 65 



torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially 
on Tiny Tim, until the last. 

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; 
and, as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the bright- 
ness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of 
rooms was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed 
preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through 
and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be 
drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the children 
of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married 
sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet 
them. Here, again, were shadows on the window blinds of 
guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all 
hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped 
lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the 
single man who saw them enter — artful witches, well they 
knew it — in a glow ! 

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their 
way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one 
was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead 
of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half- 
chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How 
it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, 
and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and 
harmless mirth on everything within its reach ! The very lamp- 
lighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks 
of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, 
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned 
the lamp-lighter that he had any company but Christmas. 

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they 
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses 
of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place 
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would 
have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing 



66 A Christmas Carol 

grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the 
west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared 
upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and, frown- 
ing lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest 
night. 

"What place is this.?" asked Scrooge. 

" A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the 
earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!" 

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they 
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and 
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glow- 
ing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and 
their children's children, and another generation beyond that, 
all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a 
voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the 
barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been 
a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they 
all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, 
the old man got quite blithe and loud; and, so surely as they 
stopped, his vigour sank again. 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his 
robe, and, passing on above the moor, sped whither.? Not to 
sea.? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the 
last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them ; and his 
ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and 
roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and 
fiercely tried to undermine the earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so 
from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild 
year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps 
of seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds — born of the 
wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water — rose and 
fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. 

But, even here, two men who watched the light had made a 



A Christmas Carol 67 

fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a 
ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands 
over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other 
Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them, the 
elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard 
weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be, struck up 
a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea 
— on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any 
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman 
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the 
watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every 
man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christ- 
mas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of 
some bygone Christmas-day, with homeward hopes belonging 
to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or 
bad, had had a kinder word for one another on that day than 
on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its 
festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a dis- 
tance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the 
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was 
to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, 
whose depths were secrets as profound as death: it was a great 
surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. 
It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his 
own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming 
room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking 
at that same nephew with approving affability! 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!" 

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a 
man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can 
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, 
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. 



68 A Christmas Carol 



It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, 
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing 
in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good- 
humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, hold- 
ing his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the 
most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's niece, by marriage, 
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being 
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. 

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" 

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried 
Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it, too!" 

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece indig- 
nantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. 
They are always in earnest. 

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, 
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed 
made to be kissed — as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little 
dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she 
laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little 
creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have 
called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, per- 
fectly satisfactory! 

" He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, " that's 
the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his 
offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say 
against him." 

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece. 
"At least, you always tell me so." 

"What of that, my dear.?" said Scrooge's nephew. "His 
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He 
don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfac- 
tion of thinking — ha, ha, ha! — that he is ever going to benefit 
Us with it." 

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. 



A Christmas Carol 69 



Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the 
same opinion. 

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. *'I am sorry for 
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by 
his ill whims ? Himself always. Here he takes it into his head 
to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the 
consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner." 

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted 
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must 
be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had 
just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were 
clustered round the fire, by lamp-light. 

"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, 
"because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. 
What do you say. Topper.?" 

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's 
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, 
who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat 
Scrooge's niece's sister — the plump one with the lace tucker, 
not the one with the roses — blushed. 

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 
"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridicu- 
lous fellow!" 

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and, as it was 
impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister 
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was 
unanimously followed. 

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that the 
consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry 
with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, 
which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter 
companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his 
mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him 
the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity 



JO A Christmas Carol 

him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help 
thinking better of it — I defy him — if he finds me going there 
in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge, 
how are you ? ' If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor 
clerk fifty pounds, iliafs something; and I think I shook him 
yesterday." 

It was their turn to laugh, now, at the notion of his shaking 
Scrooge. But, being thoroughly good-natured, and not much 
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, 
he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, 
joyously. 

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical 
family, and knew what they were about when they sung a Glee 
or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl 
away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large 
veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's 
niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other 
tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to 
whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child 
who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been 
reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain 
of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him 
came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought 
that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might 
have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness 
with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that 
buried Jacob Marley. 

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After 
awhile they played at forfeits ; for it is good to be children some- 
times, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty 
Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game 
at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more 
believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his 
boots. INIy opinion is, that it was a done thing between him 



A Christmas Carol 71 

and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present 
knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace 
tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knock- 
ing down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up 
against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, 
wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the 
plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you 
had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he 
would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which 
would have been an affront to your understanding, and would 
instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. 
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. 
But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken 
rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a 
corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the 
most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pre- 
tending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and 
further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain 
ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was 
vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, 
another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential 
together behind the curtains. 

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's-buff party, 
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in 
a snug corner where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind 
her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to ad- 
miration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the 
game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and, to 
the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow: 
though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. 
There might have been twenty people there, young and old, 
but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting, 
in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made 
no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess 



72 A Christmas Carol 

quite loiui, and very often guessed right, too, for the sharpest 
needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was 
not sharper than Scrooge; bhmt as he took it in his head to be. 

The Ghost was greatly pleased to tind him in this mood, and 
looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to 
be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit 
said could not be done. 

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half-hour. 
Spirit, only one!" 

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew 
had to think of something, and the rest must tind out what; he 
only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. 
The brisk tire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited 
from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, 
rather a disagi*eeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that 
growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and 
lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't 
made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in 
a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a 
horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a 
pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to 
him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so 
inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up otf the sofa, 
and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar 
state, cried out: 

"I have found it out! 1 know what it is, Fred I I know 
what it is!" 

*'^Vhat is it.^" cried Fred. 

"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge ! " 

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sen- 
timent, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear.-" 
ought to have been "Yes": inasmuch as an answer in the nega- 
tive was suihcient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. 
Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. 



A Christmas Carol 73 

" lie has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said Fred, 
" and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a 
glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I 
say, 'T'Uele Scrooge!'" 

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried. 

"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old 
man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't 
take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless. Uncle 
Scrooge!" 

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light 
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company 
in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the 
Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in 
the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and 
the Spirit were again upon their travels. 

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they 
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside 
sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they 
were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in 
their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, 
hospital, and gaol, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in 
his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred 
the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his pre- 
cepts. 

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had 
his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays a})peared to 
be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It 
was strange, too, that, while Scrooge remained unaltered in his 
outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge 
had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left 
a children's Twelfth-Night party, when, looking at the Spirit 
as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair 
was grey. 

"Are spirits' lives so short.?" asked Scrooge. 



74 A Christmas Carol 

*'My life upon tins globe is very brief," replied the Ghost. 
**It ends to-night." 

"To-night I" cried Scrooge. 

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near." 

The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at 
that moment. 

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, 
lookins: intently at the Spirit's robe, "but 1 stv something strange, 
and not belonging to yourseh', protruding from your skirts. Is 
it a foot or a claw.-" 

"It might l>e a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the 
Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here." 

Fn.un the foldings of its robe it brought two children: wretched 
abject, frightful, hideiuis, miserable. They knelt down at its 
feet, and clung ujx>n the outside of its garment. 

"Oh, Man I look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed 
the Ghost. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowl- 
ing, woltish : but prostrate, too, in their humility. AVhere grace- 
ful youth should luive fiUeii their features out, and touched them 
with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of 
ai]^', had pinched, and twisteil them, and pulled them into shreds. 
AVhere angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurkeil. and glared 
out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of 
humanity, in any grade. tliR^ugh all the mysteries of wonderful 
creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. 

SiTooge starteil back. appalUxi. Having them shown to 
him in this way, he trieil to say they were tine children, but the 
words chokeii themselves, rather than be parties to a he of such 
enormous magnitude. 

"Spirit I are they yours.-" Scrooge could say no more. 

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 
**And tliey cling to me, ap^"»ealing from their fathers. This boy 
is lijnorance. This cjirl b ^Yant. Beware of them K^th. and 



A Christmas Carol y^ 

all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his 
brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be 
erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand 
towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for 
your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!" 

"Have they no refuge or resource.^" cried Scrooge. 

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for 
the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?" 

The bell struck Twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. 
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the pre- 
diction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a 
solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along 
tlie ground towards him. 



STAVE FOUR 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 

THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When 
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; 
for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed 
to scatter gloom and mystery. 

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed 
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one 
outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to 
detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the dark- 
ness by which it was surrounded. 

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, 
and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. 
He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. 

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to 
Come.^" said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. 

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have 
not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Scrooge 
pursued. "Is that so. Spirit.?" 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an 
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That 
was the only answer he received. 

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge 
feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath 
him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared 
to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his 
condition, and giving him time to recover. 



A Christmas Carol 'jj 



But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with 
a vague uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, 
there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though 
he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a 
spectral hand and one great heap of black. 

" Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than 
any spectre I have seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do 
me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I 
was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a 
thankful heart. Will you not speak to me.^" 

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight be- 
fore them. 

"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is wan- 
ing fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on. Spirit!" 

The phantom moved away as it had come towards him. 
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, 
he thought, and carried him along. 

They scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather 
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its 
own act. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, 
amongst the merchants ; who hurried up and down, and chinked 
the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked 
at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold 
seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. 
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced 
to listen to their talk. 

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't 
know much about it either way. I only know he's dead." 

"When did he die?" inquired another. 

"Last night, I believe." 

"Why, what was the matter with him ?" asked a third, taking 
a vast quantity of snuflt out of a very large snuff-box. " I thought 
he'd never die." 



yS A Christmas Carol 



"God knows,*' said the first with a yawn. 

"What has he done with his money?'* asked a red-faced 
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, 
that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. 

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawn- 
ing again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left 
it to me. That's all I know." 

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

" It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; 
"for, upon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Sup- 
pose we make up a party, and volunteer.^" 

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the 
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be 
fed if I make one." 

Another laugh. 

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," 
said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I 
never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go if anybody else will. When 
I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure tliat I wasn't his most 
particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we 
met. Bye, bye!" 

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other 
groups. Scrooge knew tlie men, and looked towards tlie Spirit 
for an explanation. 

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to 
two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, tliinking tliat the 
explanation might lie here. 

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of 
business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had 
made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a 
business point of view, that is; sti'ictly in a business point of 
view. 

"How are you?" said one. 

"How are you?" returned the other. 



A Christmas Carol 



79 



"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at 
last, hey?" 

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?" 

"Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I 
suppose?" 

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!" 

Not another word. That was their nieeting, their con- 
versation, and their parting. 

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit 
should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; 
but, feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, 
he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could 
scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, 
his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province 
was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately 
connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But 
nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had 
some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to 
treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and 
especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. 
For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self 
would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solu- 
tion of these riddles easy. 

He looked about in that very place for his own image; 
but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and, thoujrh 
the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he 
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured 
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; 
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and 
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out 
in this. 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its 
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thought- 
ful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and its situa- 



8o A Christmas Carol 

tion in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking 
at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold. 

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of 
the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although 
he recognised its situation and its bad repute. The ways were 
foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half 
naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so 
many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and 
life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked 
with crime, with filth and misery. 

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, 
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, 
bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor 
within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, 
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that 
few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains 
of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of 
bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal 
stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy 
years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air with- 
out by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung 
upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm 
retirement. 

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this 
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. 
But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly 
laden, came in too, and she was closely followed by a man in 
faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them than 
they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short 
period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the 
pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. 

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who 
had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; 
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here. 



A Christmas Carol 8i 



old Joe, here's a chance ! If we haven't all three met here with- 
out meaning it!" 

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, re- 
moving his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour. 
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two 
an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! 
How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the 
place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such 
old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our 
calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come 
into the parlour." 

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The 
old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and, 
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the 
stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again. 

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw 
her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on 
a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a 
bold defiance at the other two. 

"What odds, then.? What odds, Mrs. Dilber.?" said the 
woman. " Every person has a right to take care of themselves. 
He always did!" 

"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man 
more so." 

"Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! 
Who's the wiser ? We're not going to pick holes in each other's 
coats, I suppose.?" 

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 
"We should hope not." 

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. 
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these ? Not a 
dead man, I suppose.?" 

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old 



82 A Christmas Carol 

screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his 
Hfetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look 
after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasp- 
ing out his last there, alone by himself." 

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber, 
"It's a judgment on him." 

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman; 
"and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could 
have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old 
Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm 
not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew 
pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, 
I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." 

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; 
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced 
his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil- 
case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, 
were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old 
Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each 
upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found 
that there was nothing more to come. 

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give 
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's 
next.?" 

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing 
apparel, two old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of sugar- 
tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in 
the same manner. 

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, 
and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your 
account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an 
open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off 
half-a-crown." 

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman. 



A Christmas Carol 83 



Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of 
opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged 
out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff. 

" What do you call this ? " said Joe. " Bed-curtains ? " 
"All!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward 
on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!" 

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, 
with him lying there.?" said Joe. 

"Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?" 
"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, " and you'll 
certainly do it." 

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything 
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, 
I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop 
that oil upon the blankets, now." 
"His blankets.!^" asked Joe. 

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He 
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say." 

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said 
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. 

" Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. " I an't 
so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, 
if he did. Ah ! You may look through that shirt till your eyes 
ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. 
It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted 
it, if it hadn't been for me." 

"What do you call wasting of it ?" asked old Joe. 
"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the 
woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, 
but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a 
purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as be- 
coming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that 
one." 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat 



84 A Christmas Carol 



grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the 
old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust 
which could hardly have been greater, though they had been 
obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. 

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman when old Joe, produc- 
ing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains 
upon the ground. *' This is the end of it, you see ! He frightened 
every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when 
he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!" 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I 
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. 
My life tends tliat way now. Merciful Heaven, what is this.?" 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he 
almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, be- 
neath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, 
though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. 

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any 
accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a 
secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A 
pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed: 
and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared 
for, was the body of this man. 

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand 
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted 
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon 
Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of 
it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had 
no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre 
at his side. 

Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar 
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command : 
for this is thy dominion ! But of the loved, revered, and honoured 
head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or 
make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy, and 



A Christmas Carol 85 

will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse 
are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the 
heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, 
Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the 
wound, to sow the world with life immortal! 

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet 
he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if 
this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost 
thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares .^^ They have 
brought him to a rich end, truly! 

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, 
or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the 
memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was 
tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats be- 
neath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, 
and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not 
dare to think. 

"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I 
shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!" 

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the 
head. 

"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do it 
if I could. But I have not the power. Spirit. I have not the 
power." 

Again it seemed to look upon him. 

" If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused 
by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite agonised, "show that 
person to me. Spirit! I beseech you." 

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, 
like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, 
where a mother and her children were. 

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; 
for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; 
looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in 



86 A Christmas Carol 



vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices 
of her children in their play. 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried 
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn 
and depressed, though he was young. There was a remark- 
able expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he 
felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him. 
by the fire, and, when she asked him faintly what news (which 
was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed 
how to answer. 

"Is it good,*' she said, *'or bad?'* to help him. 

*'Bad," he answered. 

*'We are quite ruined.''" 

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline." 

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is 
past hope, if such a miracle has happened." 

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead." 

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; 
but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with 
clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and 
was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart. 

"What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of last 
night, said to me when I tried to see him and obtain a week's 
delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, turns 
out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, 
tlien." 

"To whom will our debt be transferred?" 

"I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready 
with the money; and, even though we were not, it would be 
bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. 
We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!" 

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. 
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what 



A Christmas Carol 87 



they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier 
house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost 
could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. 

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,'* 
said Scrooge; "or that dark chamber. Spirit, which we left just 
now, will be for ever present to me," 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar 
to his feet; and, as they went along, Scrooge looked here and 
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They 
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house, — the dwelling he had visited 
before, — and found the mother and the children seated round the 
fire. 

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still 
as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a 
book before him. The mother and her daughters were en- 
gaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet! 

"*And he took a child, and set him in the midst of 
them.' " 

Where had Scrooge heard those words ? He had not dreamed 
them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit 
crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on.? 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand 
up to her face. 

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said. 

The colour.? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 

"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It 
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak 
eyes to your father, when he comes home, for the world. It 
must be near his time." 

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. 
"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these 
few last evenings, mother." 

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, 
cheerful voice, that only faltered once: 



88 A Christmas Carol 



** I have known him walk with — I have known him walk 
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed.*' 

"And so have I," eried Peter. "Often." 

"And so have I," exelaimed another. So had all. 

"But he was very light to earry," she resumed, intent upon 
her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: 
no trouble. And there is your father at the door!" 

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter 
— he had need of it, poor fellow — came in. His tea was ready 
for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it 
most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees, and 
laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, 
"Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!" 

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to 
all tlie family. He looked at the work upon the table, and 
praised the industry and speed of ISIrs. Cratchit and the girls. 
They woidd be done long before Sunday, he said. 

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his wife. 

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have 
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it 
is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk 
tliere on a Sunday. My little, Httle child!" cried Bob. "My 
little child!" 

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he 
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther 
apart, perhaps, than they were. 

He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, 
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There 
was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of 
some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, 
and, when he had thought a little and composed himself, he 
kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, 
and went down again quite happy. 

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother 



A Christmas Carol 89 



working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of 
Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, 
and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he 
looked a little — "just a little down, you know," said Bob, in- 
quired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said 
Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever 
heard, I told him. *I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' 
he said, *and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By-the-bye, 
how he ever knew that I don't know." 

"Knew what, my dear.^^" 

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. 

"Everybody knows that," said Peter. 

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they 
do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be 
of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's 
where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, 
"for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much 
as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really 
seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us." 

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"You would be sure of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if you 
saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised — mark 
what I say! — if he got Peter a better situation." 

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping 
company with some one, and setting up for himself." 

"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning. 

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; 
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however 
and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall 
none of us forget poor Tiny Tim — shall we — or this first part- 
ing that there was among us?" 

"Never, father!" cried they all. 

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we 



9© A Christmas Carol 

recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was a 
little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, 
and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it." 

"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 

"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!" 

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed liim, the two 
young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. 
Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God! 

*' Spectre," said Scrooge, *' something informs me that our 
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. 
Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead .?" 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as 
before — though at a different time, he thought : indeed, there 
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in 
the Future — into the resorts of business men, but showed him 
not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but 
went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought 
by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, 
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of 
time. I see tlie house. Let me behold what I shall be in days 
to come." 

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. 

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you 
point away?" 

The inexorable finger underwent no chanjje. 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. 
It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the 
same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom 
pointed as before. 

He joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither 
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. 
He paused to look round before entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name 



A Christmas Carol 91 



he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a 
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and 
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up 
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy 
place ! 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to 
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was 
exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning 
in its solemn shape. 

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," 
said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows 
of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things 
that May be only.?" 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which 
it stood. 

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if 
persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the 
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus 
with what you show me!" 

The Spirit was immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, follow- 
ing the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his 
own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

"Am / that man who lay upon the bed ?" he cried upon his 
knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. 

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!" 

The finger still was there. 

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! 
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have 
been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past 
all hope.?" 

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he 



A Christmas Carol 



fell before it: "your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. 
Assure me that 1 yet may change these shadows you have shown 
me by an altered life?" 

The kind hand trembled. 

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all 
the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. 
The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut 
out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge 
away the writing on this stone!" 

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to 
free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. 
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. 

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate re- 
versed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. 
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. 



STAVE FIVE 

THE END OF IT 

YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his 
own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, 
the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! 

*'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" 
Scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of 
all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley! Heaven 
and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my 
knees, old Jacob; on my knees!" 

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, 
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had 
been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face 
was wet with tears. 

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of his 
bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. 
They are here — I am here — the shadows of the things that 
would have been may be dispelled. They will be. I know they 
will!" 

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning 
them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, 
mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extrava- 
gance. 

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and 
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of 
himself with his stockings. " I am as light as a feather, I am as 
happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as 
giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! 



94 



A Christmas Carol 



A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! 
Hallo!" 

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing 
there: perfectly winded. 

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, 
starting off again, and going round the fire-place. *' There's 
the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! 
There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! 
There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's 
all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!" 

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many 
years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The 
father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! 

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said 
Scrooge. "I don't know how long I have been among the 
Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never 
mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! 
Hallo here!" 

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out 
the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, 
dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, 
glorious, glorious! 

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. 
No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping 
for the blood to dance to; Golden sun-light; Heavenly sky; 
sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious! 

"What's to-day.^" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy 
in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about 
him. 

"Eh.?" returned the boy with all his might of wonder. 

"What's to-day, my fine fellow.?" said Scrooge. 

"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I haven't 
missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can 



A Christmas Carol 95 

do anything they Hke. Of course they can. Of course they 
can. Hallo, my fine fellow!" 

"Hallo!" returned the boy. 

"Do you know the Poulterer's in the next street but one, at 
the corner.?" Scrooge inquired. 

"I should hope I did," replied the lad. 

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! 
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was 
hanging up there ? — Not the little prize Turkey: the big one .?" 

"What! the one as big as me.^^" returned the boy. 

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure 
to talk to him. Yes, my buck!" 

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 

"Is it.?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it." 

"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy. 

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy it, 
and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the directions 
where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a 
shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and 
I'll give you half-a-crown ! " 

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady 
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. 

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered Scrooge, rubbing 
his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He shan't know who 
sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never 
made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!" 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady 
one ; but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open 
the street-door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. 
As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his 
eye. 

"I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it 
with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an 
honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker! 



96 A Christmas Carol 

— Here's the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you ? Merry 
Christmas!" 

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, 
that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a, minute, 
like sticks of sealing-wax. 

*'Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," said 
Scrooge. "You must have a cab." 

The chuckle with which he said tliis, and the chuckle with 
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he 
paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed 
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which 
he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till 
he cried. 

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to 
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when 
you don't dance while you are at it. But, if he had cut the end 
of his nose off", he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster 
over it, and been quite satisfied. 

He dressed himself " all in his best," and at last got out into 
the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he 
had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walk- 
ing with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one 
witli a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a 
word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good 
morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said 
often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, 
tliose were tlie blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld 
the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting-house the 
dav before, and said, "Scrooge and Marlev's, I believe.'^" It 
sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman 
would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path 
lay straight before him, and he took it. 

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and tak- 



A Christmas Carol 



97 



ing the old gentleman by both his hands, " how do you do ? I 
hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A 
merry Christmas to you, sir!" 

"Mr. Scrooge?" 

"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it may 
not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And 

will you have the goodness " Here Scrooge whispered in 

his ear. 

"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath were 
taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?" 

"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A 
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. 
Will you do me that favour?" 

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him, "I 
don't know what to say to such munifi " 

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come 
and see me. Will you come and see me?" 

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he 
meant to do it. 

"Thankee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you. I 
thank you fifty times. Bless you!" 

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched 
the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the 
head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens 
of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything 
could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any 
walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness. 
In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house. 

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage 
to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it. 

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the 
girl. Nice girl! Very. 

"Yes, sir." 

"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge. 



98 A Christmas Carol 

"IIo's In tlio dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll 
show YOU up-stairs. if you please." 

"Thankee, lie knows me," said Serooge, with his hand 
alnwdy on the dining-room loek. "I'll go in here, my dear." 

He turned it jrentlv, and sidled his faee in round the door. 
They were looking at the table (whieh was spi*ead out in great 
array V, for these young housekeepers are always nervous on 
sueh points, and like to see that everything is right. 

**Fred!" said Serooge. 

Dear heart alive, how his nieee by marriage started! 
Serooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in 
the eorner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on 
any aeeouut. 

**Why, bless my soul!" eried Trod, "who's that?" 

"It's I. Your unele Serooge. 1 have eome to dinner. 
AVill you let me in, Fred.-" 

Let him in! It is a merey he didn't shake his arm otV. He 
was at home in live minutes. Nothiui^r eould be heartier. His 
nieee lookinl just the same. So did Topper when //<- ean\e. So 
did the plump sister when she eame. So did every one when 
thrif eame. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful 
unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! 

Hut he was early at the otHee next morning. Oh. he was 
early there! If he eould only be there tirst. and eateh Bob 
Cratehit eoniing late! That was the thing he had set his heart 
Ufx^n. 

And he did it; yes, he did! The eloek struck nine. No 
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob, He was full eighttvn minutes 
and a half behind his time. Serooge sat with his door wide 
open, that he might see him eome into the tank. 

His hat was otf before he opened the door: his comforter too. 
He was on his stool in a jitfy; driving away with his jhmi. as if he 
weiv trying to overtake nine o'eloek. 

"Hallo!" growled Scrtx^ge in his accustomed voice as near 



A Chris']' MAS Carol 



99 



as he could feign it. "What do you mean by<!oming here at 
this time of day?" 

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time." 

"You are!" rc})eated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. 
Step this way, sir, if you pk'ase." 

"It's only on(;e a year, sir," })leadcd Bob, appearing from 
the tank. "It shall not be repeated. 1 was making rather 
merry yesterday, sir." 

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am 
not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," 
he contiiuied, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig 
in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again: 
"and therefore I am about to raise your salary!" 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. lie had 
a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding 
him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait- 
waistcoat. 

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge with an earnestness 
that could not be mistaken, as he cla})))ed him on the back. 
"A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given 
you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to 
assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs 
this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop. 
Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before 
you dot another i. Bob Cratchit!" 

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and in- 
finitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second 
father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and 
as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old 
city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people 
laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and 
little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing 
ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people 



loo A Christmas Carol 

did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and, knowing 
tliat sueh as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite 
as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have 
the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: 
and that was quite enough for him. 

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon 
the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards: and it was 
always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, 
if any nuin alive possessed the knowledge. INIay that be truly 
said of us, and all of us ! And so, i\s Tiny Tim observed, God 
bless Us, Every One! 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

A FAIRY TALE OF HOME 

r 

CHIRP THE FIRST 

THE kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peery- 
bingle said. 1 know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may 
leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't 
say which of them began it; but I say the kettle did. I ought 
to know, I hope ? The kettle began it, full five minutes by the 
little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket 
uttered a chirp. 

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive 
little Hay-maker at the top of it, jerking away right and left 
with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down 
half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in 
at all! 

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that I 
wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peery- 
bingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. 
Nothing should induce me. But, this is a question of fact. 
And the fact is, that the kettle began it at least five minutes 
before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. Contra- 
dict me, and I'll say ten. 

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have 
proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain con- 
sideration — if I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; 



I04 The Cricket on the Hearth 



and how is it possible to begin at the beginning without begin- 
ning at the kettle ? 

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, 
you must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket. And 
this is what led to it, and how it came about. 

Mrs. Peei-ybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and click- 
ing over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked in- 
numerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid 
all about the yard — Mrs. Peerybiuglo tilled the kettle at the 
water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good 
deal less, for they were tall, and Mrs. Peerybingle was but 
short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost 
her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water being 
uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state 
wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, 
patten rings included — had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's 
toes, and even splashed her legs. And when we rather plume 
GUI-selves (with reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves 
particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the 
moment, hard to bear. 

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It 
wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't 
hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it 
would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very 
Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed 
and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, 
resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy- 
turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a 
better cause, dived sideways in — down to the very bottom of 
the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made 
half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water which 
the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle before 
she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying 



The Cricket on the Hearth 105 

its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly 
and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, *'I won't boil. 
Nothing shall induce me!" 

But, Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good-humour, dusted 
her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down 
before the kettle laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose 
and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Hay-maker at the top 
of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock- 
still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion 
but the flame. 

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to 
the second, all right and regular. But his sufferings when the 
clock was going to strike were frightful to behold; and when a 
Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note 
six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice — or 
like a something wiry plucking at his legs. 

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise 
among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided 
that this terrified Hay-maker became himself again. Nor was 
he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons 
of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and I 
wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how 
Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There 
is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much 
clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know 
better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, 
surely. 

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the 
evening. Now it was that the kettle, growing mellow and musi- 
cal, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to 
indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as 
if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet to be good company. 
Now it was that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle 
its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, 



io6 The Cricket on the Hearth 

and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious as never 
maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of. 

So plain, too! Bless you, you might have understood it like 
a book — better than some books you and I could name, per- 
haps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud 
which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung 
about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled 
its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron 
body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the 
recently rebellious lid — such is the influence of a bright ex- 
ample — performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and 
dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin 
brother. 

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and 
welcome to somebody out of doors : to somebody at that moment 
coming on towards the snug small home and the crisp fire: 
there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle knew it per- 
fectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It's a dark night, 
sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, 
above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; 
and there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I 
don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep 
and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together; set a 
brand upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the 
widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there's 
hoar frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the 
ice it isn't water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say 
that anything is what it ought to be; but he's coming, coming, 
coming! — 

And here, if you like, the Cricket did chime in! with a 
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus ; 
with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as com- 
pared with the kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that, if it had 
then and there burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had 



The Cricket on the Hearth 107 

fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its little body into 
fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural and inevitable con- 
sequence, for which it had expressly laboured. 

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It 
persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took 
first fiddle, and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its 
shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and 
seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There was 
an indescribable little trill and tremble in it at its loudest, which 
suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap 
again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very 
well together, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the 
song was still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they 
sang it in their emulation. 

The fair little listener — for fair she was, and young; though 
something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't 
myself object to that — lighted a candle, glanced at the Hay- 
maker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average 
crop of minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw 
nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the 
glass. And my opinion is (and so would yours have been) that 
she might have looked a long way and seen nothing half so 
agreeable. When she came back, and sat down in her former 
seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a 
perfect fury of competition. The kettle's weak side clearly 
being that he didn't know when he was beat. 

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp ! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum — m — m ! 
Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum — m 
— m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving 
in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, 
hum, hum — m — m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, 
chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum — m 



io8 The Cricket on the Hearth 

— m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they got so 
jumbleil togetlier, in the hiirry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the 
mateh, that whether the kettle ehirped and the Crieket hiinnned, 
or the Crieket ehirped and the kettle luimnied, or they both 
chirped and both huninied, it wonld have taken a clearer head 
than yonrs or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. 
lUit of this there is no donbt : that, the kettle and the Cricket, at 
one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation 
best known to themselves, sent, each, his iireside song of com- 
fort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through 
the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, 
bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached 
towards it throngli the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, 
literally in a twinkling, and cried, "AVelcome home, old fellow! 
Welcome home, my boy!" 

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, 
and was taken otY the tire. ]Mrs. IVerybingle then went 
running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, 
the tramp of a horse, tlie voice of a man, tlie tearing in and 
out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious 
appearance of a baby, there was soon the very AYhat's-his- 
name to play. 

Where the baby came from, or how^ Mrs. Peerybingle got 
hold of it in that Hash of time, / don't know. But a live baby 
there was in ^Irs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable 
amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she was drawn 
gently to the tire, by a sturdy iigure of a man, nuich taller and 
much older tlian herself, who had to stoop a long way down to 
kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with 
the lumbatxo, miirht have done it. 

"Oh goodness, John!" said Mrs. P. "What a state you're 
in with the weather!" 

He was something the worse for it undeniably. The thick 
mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and, 




"A dot (ind" — here he (/la need td the hnhy — "n dot and carry — / won't say it, 
for jcor I should spoil it ; txit I mas very near a. joke." 



The Cricket on the Hearth 109 



between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in his 
very whiskers. 

"Why, you see. Dot," John made answer slowly, as he un- 
rolled a shawl from about his throat, and warmed his hands; 
"it — it an't exactly summer weather. So no wonder." 

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," 
said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she 
did like it very much. 

"Why, what else are you.?" returned John, looking down 
upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze 
as his huge hand and arm could give. "A dot and" — here he 
glanced at the baby — "a dot and carry — I won't say it, for 
fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I don't know 
as ever I was nearer." 

He was often near to something or other very clever, by his 
own account: this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so 
heavy, but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so 
gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, 
but so good! Oh, Mother Nature, give thy children the true 
poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast — he 
was but a Carrier, by the way — and we can bear to have them 
talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless thee 
for their company! 

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and her 
baby in her arms : a very doll of a baby : glancing with a coquettish 
thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head 
just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, 
half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the 
great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, 
with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude 
support to her slight need, and make his burly middle age a 
leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was 
pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the back- 
ground for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her 



no The Cricket on the Hearth 

earliest teens) of this grouping ; and stood with her mouth and 
eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if 
it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the 
Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, 
checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if 
he thought he might crack it; and, bending down, surveyed it 
from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an 
amiable mastiff might be supposed to show if he found himself, 
one day, the father of a young canary. 

"An't he beautiful, John ? Don't he look precious in his 
sleep?" 

*' Very precious," said John. " Very much so. He generally 
is asleep, an't he.'^" 

*'Lor, John! Good gracious, no!" 

"Oh!" said John, pondering. "I thought his eyes was 
generally shut. "Halloa!" 

"Goodness, John, how you startle one!" 

"It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way," said the 
astonished Carrier, " is it ? See how he's winking with both 
of 'em at once! and look at his mouth! AVhy, he's gasping like 
a gold and silver fish!" 

"You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said Dot, 
with all the dignity of an experienced matron. "But how 
should you know what little complaints children are troubled 
with, John ? You wouldn't so much as know their names, you 
stupid fellow." And when she had turned the baby over on 
her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she 
pinched her husband's ear, laughing. 

"No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. "It's very true. 
Dot. I don't know much about it. I only know that I've 
been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. It's been 
blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way home." 

"Poor old man, so it has!" cried ]Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly 
becoming very active. " Here, take the precious darling, Tilly, 



The Cricket on the Hearth m 



while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it 
with kissing it, 1 could ! Hie then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! 
Only let me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you 
with the parcels, like a busy bee. 'How doth the little' — and 
all the rest of it, you know, John. Did you ever learn 'How 
doth the little,' when you went to school, John.?" 

"Not to quite know it," John returned. "1 was very near 
it once. But I should only have spoilt it, 1 dare say." 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh 
you ever heard. "What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, 
John, to be sure!" 

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that 
the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro 
before the door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due 
care of the horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, 
if I gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost 
in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions 
were due to the family in general, and must be impartially dis- 
tributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now 
describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was 
being rubbed down at the stable door; now feigning to make 
savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself 
to sudden stops; now eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in 
the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected applica- 
tion of his moist nose to her countenance; now exhibiting an 
obtrusive interest in the baby; now going round and round upon 
the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for 
the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of a 
fag-end of a tail of his out into the weather, as if he had just 
remembered an appointment, and was off at a round trot, to 
keep it. 

"There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!" said Dot; 
as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. " And there's 
the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the 



112 The Cricket on the Hearth 

crusty loaf, and all! Here's a clothes-basket for the small 
parcels, John, if you've got any there. Where are you, John? 
Don't let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you 
do!" 

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting 
the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising 
talent for getting this baby into difficulties: and had several 
times imperilled its short life in a quiet way peculiarly her own. 
She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, inso- 
much that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of 
sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were 
loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial 
development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vest- 
ment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the 
region of the back, of a corset, or a pair of stays, in colour a dead 
green. Being always in a state of gaping admiration at every- 
thing, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of 
her mistress's perfections and the baby's. Miss Slowboy, in her 
little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour 
to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honour 
to the baby's head, which they were the occasional means of 
bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed- 
posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest 
results of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at finding her- 
self so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. 
For the maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown 
to Fame, and Tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling; 
which word, though only differing from fondling by one vowel's 
length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another 
thing. 

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her 
husband, tugging at the clothesbasket, and making the most 
strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would 
have amused you almost as much as it amused him. It may 




Tillij Slowhoy. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 113 



have entertained the Cricket, too, for anything I know; but, 
certainly, it now began to chirp again vehemently. 

"Heyday!" said John in his slow way. "It's merrier than 
ever to-night, I think." 

"And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always 
has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth is the luckiest 
thing in all the world!" 

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought 
into his head that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite 
agreed with her. But it was probably one of his narrow escapes, 
for he said nothing. 

"The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on 
that night when you brought me home — when you brought 
me to my new home here; its little mistress. Nearly a year 
ago. You recollect, John?" 

Oh, yes! John remembered. I should think so! 

"Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of 
promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be 
kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of 
that, John, then) to find an old head on the shoulders of your 
foolish little wife." 

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the 
head, as though he would have said No, no; he had had no such 
expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. 
And really he had reason. They were very comely. 

" It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so : for you 
have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the 
most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a happy 
home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!" 

"Why, so do I, then," said the Carrier. "So do I, Dot." 

"I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many 
thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the 
twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, 
John — before baby was here, to keep me company and make 



114 The Cricket on the Hearth 

the house gay — when I have thought how lonely you would be 
if I should die; how lonely I should be, if I could know that you 
had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth has 
seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear 
to me, before whose coming sound my trouble vanished like a 
dream. And when I used to fear — I did fear once, John; I 
was very young, you know — that ours might prove to be an 
ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, and you more like 
my guardian than my husband; and that you might not, how- 
ever hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped 
and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me 
up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I was 
thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting 
you; and I love the Cricket for their sake!" 

*'And so do I," repeated John. "But, Dot! / hope and 
pray that I might learn to love you ? How you talk ! I had 
learnt that long before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's 
little mistress. Dot!" 

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at 
him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him some- 
thing. Next moment, she was down upon her knees before the 
basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels. 

"There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some 
goods behind the cart just now; and though they give more 
trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to 
grumble, have we.^ Besides, you have been delivering, I dare 
say, as you came along .^" 

"Oh, yes!" John said. "A good many." 

"Why, what's this round box.? Heart alive, John, it's a 
wedding-cake!" 

"Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John ad- 
miringly. "Now, a man would never have thought of it! 
Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake 
up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled-salmon 



The Cricket on the Hearth 115 

keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out 
directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastrycook's." 

"And it weighs I don't know what — whole hundred- 
weights!" cried Dot, making a great demonstration of trying 
to lift it. "Whose is it, John.? Where is it going.?" 

"Read the writing on the other side," said John. 

"Why, John! My Goodness, John!" 

"Ah! who'd have thought it.?" John returned. 

"You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on the floor 
and shaking her head at him, "that it's Gruff and Tackleton the 
toymaker!" 

John nodded. 

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in 
assent — in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her 
lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never made 
for screwing up; I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier 
through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the 
meantime, who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps 
of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all 
the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into 
the plural number, inquired aloud of that young creature. Was 
it Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call 
at Pastrycooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know 
the boxes when its fathers brought them home; and so on. 

"And that is really to come about!" said Dot. "Why, she 
and I were girls at school together, John." 

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of 
her, perhaps, as she was in that same school-time. He looked 
upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. 

"And he's as old! As unlike her! — Why, how many 
years older than you is Gruff and Tackleton, John ? " 

"How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night, at one 
sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder?" 
replied John good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round 



ii6 The Cricket on the Hearth 

table, and began at the cold ham. "As to eating, I eat but 
little; but that little I enjoy, Dot." 

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal-times, one of his 
innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and 
flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little 
wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly 
from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes 
were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so 
mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless 
alike of the tea and John (although he called to her and rapped 
the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched 
her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and 
hurried to her place behind the tea-board, laughing at her 
negligence. But not as she had laughed before. The manner 
and the music were quite changed. 

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow, the room was 
not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. 

"So, these are all the parcels, are they, John.^" she said, 
breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted 
to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment 
— certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that 
he ate but little. " So these are all the parcels, are they, John .?" 

"That's all," said John. "Why— no— I" — laying down his 
knife and fork, and taking a long breath — "I declare — I've 
clean forgotten the old gentleman!" 

"The old gentleman.?" 

"In the cart," said John. "He was asleep among the straw, 
the last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered him, 
twice, since I came in; but he went out of my head again. 
Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That's my hearty!" 

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had 
hurried with the candle in his hand. 

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to 
The Old Gentleman, and connecting, in her mystified imagina- 



The Cricket on the Hearth 117 

tion, certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, 
was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the 
fire to seek protection near the skirt of her mistress, and coming 
into contact, as she crossed the doorway, with an ancient Stranger, 
she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only 
offensive instrument within her reach. This instrument hap- 
pening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, 
which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for that 
good dog, more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been 
watching the old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off 
with a few young poplar- trees that were tied up behind the cart; 
and he still attended on him very closely, worrying his gaiters, 
in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons. 

"You're such an undeniably good sleeper, sir," said John, 
when tranquillity was restored (in the meantime the old gentle- 
man had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the 
room), "that I have half a mind to ask you where the other six 
are — only that would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. 
Very near, though," murmured the Carrier with a chuckle; 
very near! 

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, 
singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, 
penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the 
Carrier's wife by gravely inclining his head. 

His garb was very quaint and odd — a long, long way behind 
the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a 
great brown club or walking-stick; and, striking this upon the 
floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. On which he sat 
down quite composedly. 

"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife. "That's 
the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a 
milestone. And almost as deaf." 

"Sitting in the open air, John.^" 

"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk. 'Car- 



ii8 The CkicrI'.t on 'riii< 111'. ART n 



rin»;(* Paid,' he said; ami «;avt' \\\c (m^1iU'(M»-|hmkv. Then ho 
got in. A!»(l there lie is." 

"lie's j2;oi!i|jj, Jolni, 1 think!" 

Not at all. lie was only {^ointij to speak. 

"ir you pltNise, I was to he left till eallcil for," said tlic 
Stranger mildly. "Don't mind me." 

With Ihal he look a pair of sjHU'taeles from one of Ids lar<^e 
pockets, and a hook from another, and leisnrely he^an to read. 
Makini; no more of lh>\er than if he had hetMi a honse land)! 

'The Carrier and his wife e\ehan<j;(Ml a look of [)erplexity. 
The Stranjjjer raised his head; and, <;laneing from the latter to 
the former, said : 

"\'onr dnn<!:httM*, my irood friend?" 

" Wile," retnrnt'd ,h)hn. 

"Niece?" said the Stranger. 

"Wife!" roariMl John. 

" Indtuul ?" ohservod tlu^ StrangtM-. "Stin^ly? Veryyonng!" 

lie (piiiMly turned over, and resumed his reading. Hut, 
before he could have read two lines, he again inlerrui)ted him- 
self to say: 

" Kahy yours?" 

,Iohn gave him a gigantic nod: e(|nivalent to an answer in 
the allirmative, dt'livercil through a speaking trumpet. 

"(Jirl?" 

"Ho-o-oy!" mared .lohn. 

" Also V(M-y young, eh ?" 

INIrs. IVeryhingle instantly struck in. "Two months and 
IhriH' da-ays. Vaceimded just six wctd-;s ago-o! Took very 
<ine-Iy! Considered, hy the doctor, a riMuarkahly heantifnl 
ehi-ild! V'(|ual to the gentMal run ol' children at i\\c months t)-ld! 
Takes notici^ in a way (juile wt>ndtM- Tul! I\lay seem imj)ossible 
to you, but feels his legs al-ready!" 

llen\ Ihc br«>alhlcss lillle n)olluM-, who had been shrieking 
those short stMiltMuvs intt) the oKl man's ci\\\ until her pretty 



IF W '^jn 



If w;mmmmi'imm'm 




"IVi./i.l's the 'may I joand liJ.ni,, kUIuu/ hi/ llic rixiil.-'ulc! 
Uprif/fU (iH a milcxlone." 



^ 



The Cricket on the Hearth 119 



face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn 
and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious 
cry of "Ketcher, Ketcher" — which sounded like some unknown 
words, adapted to a popular Sneeze — performed some cow- 
like gambols around that all unconscious Innocent. 

" Hark ! He's called for, sure enough," said John. " There's 
somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly." 

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from with- 
out; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that any one could 
lift if he chose — and a good many people did choose, for all 
kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with 
the Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being 
opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy- 
faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from 
the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to 
shut the door and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the 
back of that garment the inscription G & T in large black cap- 
itals. Also the word GLASS in bold characters. 

" Good evening, John!" said the little man. " Good evening, 
mum! Good evening, Tilly! Good evening. Unbeknown! 
How's Baby, mum.? Boxer's pretty well I hope.?" 

"All thriving, Caleb," replied Dot. "I am sure you need 
only look at the dear child, for one, to know that." 

"And I'm sure I need only look at you for another," said 
Caleb. 

He didn't look at her, though; he had a wandering and 
thoughtful eye, which seemed to be always projecting itself 
into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a de- 
scription which will equally apply to his voice. 

"Or at John for another," said Caleb. "Or at Tilly, as 
far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer." 

"Busy just now, Caleb.?" asked the Carrier. 

"Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with the distraught 
air of a man who was casting about for the Philosopher's stone. 



I20 The Cricket on the Hearth 

at least. "Pretty much so. There's rather a run on Noah's 
Arks at present. I could have wished to improve on the Family, 
but I don't see how it's to be done at the price. It would be 
a satisfaction to one's mind to make it clearer which was Shems 
and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an't on that scale, 
neither, as compared with elephants, you know! Ah, well! 
Have you got anything in the parcel line for me, John.?" 

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had 
taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and 
paper, a tiny flower-pot. 

"There it is!" he said, adjusting it with great care. "Not 
so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!" 

Caleb's dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him. 

" Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. " Very dear at this season." 

"Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, what ever it 
cost," returned the little man. "Anything else, John.?" 

"A small box," replied the Carrier. "Here you are!" 

"'For Caleb Plummer,'" said the little man, spelling out 
the direction. "'With Cash.' With Cash, John.? I don't 
think it's for me." 

"With Care," returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. 
"Where do you make out cash.?" 

"Oh! To be sure!" said Caleb. "It's all right. With 
care! Yes, yes; that's mine. It might have been with cash, 
indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, 
John. You loved him like a son; didn't you .? You needn't say 
you did. I know, of course. * Caleb Plummer. With care.' 
Yes, yes, it's all right. It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughters' 
work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John." 

"I wish it was, or could be!" cried the Carrier. 

"Thankee," said the little man. "You speak very hearty. 
To think that she should never see the Dolls — and them a 
staring at her, so bold, all day long! That's where it cuts. 
What's the damage, John.?" 



The Cricket on the Hearth 121 

"I'll damage you," said John, *'if you inquire. Dot! Very 
near ? 

" Well ! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. *' It's 
your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all." 

"I think not," said the Carrier. "Try again." 

" Something for our Governor, eh .?" said Caleb after ponder- 
ing a little while. "To be sure. That's what I came for; but 
my head's so running on them Arks and things! He hasn't 
been here, has he .^" 

"Not he," returned the Carrier. "He's too busy, courting." 

"He's coming round, though," said Caleb; "for he told me 
to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten 
to one he'd take me up. I had better go, by-the-bye. — You 
couldn't have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer's tail, mum, 
for half a moment, could you.^" 

"Why, Caleb, what a question!" 

" Oh, never mind, mum ! " said the little man. " He mightn't 
like it, perhaps. There's a small order just come in for bark- 
ing dogs; and I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could 
for sixpence. That's all. Never mind, mum." 

It happened opportunely that Boxer, without receiving the 
proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this 
implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his 
study from the life to a more convenient season, shouldered the 
round box, and took a hurried leave. He might have spared 
himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold. 

"Oh! You are here, are you.? Wait a bit. I'll take you 
home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my 
service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better 
too, if possible! And younger," mused the speaker in a low 
voice, "that's the devil of it!" 

"I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. 
Tackleton," said Dot, not with the best grace in the world, 
"but for your condition." 



122 The Cricket on the Hearth 

"You know all about it, then?" 

"I have got myself to believe it somehow," said Dot. 

"After a hard struggle, I suppose?" 

"Very." 

Tackleton the Toy merchant, pretty generally known as 
Gruff and Tackleton — for that was the firm, though Gruff had 
been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and, as some 
said, his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the 
business — Tackleton the Toy merchant was a man whose 
vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and 
Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp 
Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown 
his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the 
full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have turned 
out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. 
But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toymaking, 
he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on children all his 
life, and was their implacable enemy. He despised all toys; 
wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, 
to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper 
farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost 
lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies w^ho darned stockings 
or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock-in-trade. 
In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; 
Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, 
and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of 
countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only 
relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. 
Anything suggestive of a Pony nightmare was delicious to him. 
He had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) 
by getting up Goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the 
Powers of Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural 
shell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture 
of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no 



The Cricket on the Hearth 123 



painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his 
artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the counte- 
nances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of 
mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, 
for the whole Christmas or Midsummer Vacation. 

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other 
things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that within the 
great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, 
there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleasant 
fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit, and as agree- 
able a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed-looking 
boots with mahogany-coloured tops. 

Still, Tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be married. 
In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young 
wife too, a beautiful young wife. 

He didn't look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in the 
Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in 
his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his 
hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his 
whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned self peering out of one little 
corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any 
number of ravens. But a Bridegroom he designed to be. 

"In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of 
the first month in the year. That's my wedding-day," said 
Tackleton. 

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and 
one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut was always 
the expressive eye ? I don't think I did. 

"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling his 
money. 

"Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the Carrier. 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just such 
another couple. Just!" 

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not 



124 The Cricket on the Hearth 

to be described. What next? His imagination would compass 
the possibiUty of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man 
was mad. 

"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudging 
the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 
"You'll come to the wedding.? We're in the same boat, you 
know." 

"How in the same boat.?" inquired the Carrier. 

"A little disparity, you know," said Tackleton with another 
nudge. "Come and spend an evening with us beforehand." 

"Why.?" demanded John, astonished at this pressing hos- 
pitality. 

"Why.?" returned the other. "That's a new way of receiv- 
ing an invitation. Why, for pleasure — sociability, you know, 
and all that." 

"I thought you were never sociable," said John in his plain 
way. 

"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, 
I see," said Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth is, you have a 
— what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appear- 
ance together, you and your wife. We know better, you know, 
but " 

"No, we don't know better," interposed John. "What are 
you talking about.?" 

"Well! We don't know better, then," said Tackleton. 
"We'll agree that we don't. As you like; what does it matter.? 
I was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your 
company will produce a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton 
that will be. And, though I don't think your good lady's very 
friendly to me in this matter, still she can't help herself from 
falling into my views, for there's a compactness and cosiness of 
appearance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent 
case. You'll say you'll come.?" 

"We have arranged to keep our Wedding-day (as far as 



The Cricket on the Hearth 125 



that goes) at home," said John. "We have made the promise 
to ourselves these six months. We think, you see, that home — " 

"Bah! what's home.?" cried Tackleton. "Four walls and a 
ceiling! (Why don't you kill that Cricket.? / would! I 
always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a 
ceihng at my house. Come to me!" 

"You kill your Crickets, eh.?" said John. 

"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel 
heavily on the floor. "You'll say you'll come.? It's as much 
your interest as mine, you know, that the women should per- 
suade each other that they're quiet and contented, and couldn't 
be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, 
another woman is determined to clinch always. There's that 
spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my 
wife, ' I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best 
husband in the world, and I dote on him,' my wife will say the 
same to yours, or more, and half believe it." 

"Do you mean to say she don't, then.?" asked the Carrier. 

" Don't ! " cried Tackleton with a short, sharp laugh. " Don't 
what.?" 

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote upon you." 
But, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon 
him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within 
an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and 
parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, "that she 
don't believe it.?" 

"Ah, you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton. 

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift 
of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was 
obliged to be a little more explanatory. 

"I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up the 
fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply, 
"There I am, Tackleton to wit": "I have the humour, sir, to 
marry a young wife, and a pretty wife": here he rapped his 



126 The Cricket on the Hearth 

little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; 
with a sense of power. "I'm able to gratify that humour, and 
I do. It's my whim. But — now look there!" 

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully before 
the fire : leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching 
the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, 
and then at her, and then at him again. 

"She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said Tackle- 
ton; "and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough 
for me. But do you think there's anything more in it.^" 

"I think," observed the Carrier, "that I should chuck any 
man out of window who said there wasn't." 

"Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity 
of assent. "To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. 
I'm certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams!" 

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and un- 
certain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help showing it in his 
manner. 

"Good night, my dear friend!" said Tackleton compas- 
sionately. "I'm off. We're exactly alike in reality, I see. 
You won't give us to-morrow evening.? Well! Next day you 
go out visiting, I know. I'll meet you there, and bring my 
wife that is to be. It'll do her good. You're agreeable.'^ 
Thankee. What's that.?" 

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, 
sudden cry, that made the room ring like a glass vessel. She 
had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror 
and surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards the fire to 
warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. 
But quite still. 

"Dot!" cried the Carrier. "Mary! Darling! What's the 
matter.?" 

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been 
dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his 



The Cricket on the Hearth 127 



mspended presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair 
Df her head, but immediately apologised. 

"Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. 
"Are you ill? What is it? Tell me dear!" 

She only answered by beating her hands together, and fall- 
ing into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp 
upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept 
bitterly. And then, she laughed again, and then she cried 
again, and then she said how cold she was, and suffered him to 
lead her to the fire, where she sat down as before. The old man 
standing, as before, quite still. 

"I'm better, John," she said. "I'm quite well now — 
I " 

"John!" But John was on the other side of her. Why 
turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if address- 
ing him. Was her brain wandering? 

" Only a fancy, John dear — a kind of shock — a something 
coming suddenly before my eyes — I don't know what it was. 
It's quite gone, quite gone." 

"I'm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning the ex- 
pressive eye all round the room. "I wonder where it's gone, 
and what it was. Humph! Caleb, come here! Who's that 
with the grey hair?" 

"I don't know, sir," returned Caleb in a whisper. "Never 
see him before in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut- 
cracker; quite a new model. With a screw-jaw opening down 
into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely." 

"Not ugly enough," said Tackleton. 

"Or for a fire-box either," observed Caleb in deep contem- 
plation, "what a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches 
in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; and what a fire-box for 
a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just as he stands!" 

"Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. "Nothing in 
him at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?" 



128 The Cricket on the Hearth 



"Oh, quite gone! Quite gone!" said the Httle woman, 
waving him hurriedly away. "Good night!" 

"Good night!" said Tackleton. "Good night, John Peery- 
bingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, 
and I'll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than 
ever, eh. ^ Goodnight!" 

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at 
the door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head. 

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, 
and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had 
scarcely been conscious of the Stranger's presence until now, 
when he again stood there, their only guest. 

"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I must 
give him a hint to go." 

"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, ad- 
vancing to him; "the more so as I fear your wife has not been 
well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity," he touched his 
ears, and shook his head, "renders almost indispensable, not 
having arrived, I fear there must be some mistake. The bad 
night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may I 
never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. Would 
you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here.?" 

"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!" 

"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity o" this 
consent. "Well! I don't object; but still I'm not quite sure 
that " 

" Hush ! " she interrupted. " Dear John ! " 

"Why, he's stone deaf," urged John. 

" I know he is, but Yes, sir, certainly. Yes, cer- 
tainly! I'll make him up a bed directly, John." 

As she hurried oif to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the 
agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier stood 
looking after her, quite confounded. 

"Did its mothers make it up a Beds, then!" cried Miss 



The Cricket on the Hearth 129 



Slowboy to the Baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly 
when its caps was Ufted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a 
sitting by the fires!" 

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, 
which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the 
Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally 
repeating even these absurd words, many times. So many 
times, that he got them by heart, and was still conning them 
over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after administering as 
much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought 
wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once 
more tied the Baby's cap on. 

"And frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires. 
What frightened Dot, I wonder.^" mused the Carrier, pacing 

to and fro. 

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the toy mer- 
chant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. 
For Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful 
sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception, that a broken 
hint was always worrying to him. He certainly had no inten- 
tion in his mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said 
with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of 
reflection came into his mind together, and he could not keep 
them asunder. 

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining 
all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot — quite 
well again, she said, quite well again — arranged^ the great 
chair in the chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and 
gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the 
hearth. 

She always would sit on that little stool. I think she must 
have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling 

little stool. 

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should 



130 The Cricket on the Hearth 

say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that 
chubby Uttle finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe 
to clear the tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think 
that there was really something in the tube, and blow a dozen 
times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most pro- 
voking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it, 
was quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect 
mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp 
of paper, when the Carrier had it in his mouth — going so very 
near his nose, and yet not scorching it — was Art, high Art. 

And the Cricket and the Kettle, turning up again, acknowl- 
edged it! The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! 
The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowl- 
edged it! The Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and ex- 
panding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. 

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, 
and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and 
as the Cricket chirped, that Genius of his Hearth and Home 
(for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the 
room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. Dots 
of all ages and all sizes filled the chamber. Dots who were 
merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers in the 
fields ; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the plead- 
ing of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at 
the door, and taking wondering possession of the household 
keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, 
bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and 
blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic 
balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grand- 
children; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as 
they crept along. Old Carriers, too, appeared with blind old 
Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers 
(" Peeryb ingle Brothers" on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, 
tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old 



The Cricket on the Hearth 131 

Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed 
him all these things — he saw them plainly, though his eyes 
were fixed upon the fire — the Carrier's heart grew light and 
happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, 
and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. 

But what was that young figure of a man, which the same 
Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, 
singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its 
arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating "Married! and not 
tome!" 

Oh, Dot! Oh, failing Dot! There is no place for it in all 
your husband's visions. Why has its shadow fallen on his 
hearth ? 



CHIRP THE SECOND 

CALEB PLUMMER and his Blind Daughter Hved all alone 
by themselves, as the Story Books say — and my blessing, 
with yours, to back it I hope, on the Story Books, for saying 
anything in this work-a-day world! — Caleb Plummer and his 
Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked 
nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than 
a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackle- 
ton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great 
feature of the street; but you might have knocked down Caleb 
Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the 
pieces in a cart. 

If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer 
the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, 
no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. 
It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton like a barnacle 
to a ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toad- 
stools to the stem of a tree. But it was the germ from which 
the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung; and, 
under its crazy roof, the Gruff before last had, in a small way, 
made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who had played 
with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone to 
sleep. 

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived 
here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor 
Blind Daughter somewhere else — in an enchanted home of 
Caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, 
and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer; but in the 
only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted, 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



133 



deathless love, Nature had been the mistress of his study; and, 
from her teaching, all the wonder came. 

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, 
walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices 
unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and 
tending downward. The Blind Girl never knew that iron was 
rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, 
and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The 
Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware 
were on the board; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in 
the house; that Caleb's scanty hairs were turning greyer and more 
grey before her sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they 
had a master, cold, exacting, and uninterested — never knew 
that Tackleton was Tackleton, in short; but lived in the belief 
of an eccentric humorist, who loved to have his jest with them, 
and who, while he was the Guardian Angel of their lives, dis- 
dained to hear one word of thankfulness. 

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! 
But he, too, had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly 
to its music when the motherless Blind Child was very young 
that Spirit had inspired him with the thought that even her 
great deprivation might be almost changed into a blessing, 
and the girl made happy by these little means. For all the 
Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, even though the people who 
hold converse with them do not know it (which is frequently 
the case), and there are not in the unseen world voices more 
gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly relied on, or 
that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel, as the 
Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth address 
themselves to humankind. 

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual 
working-room, which served them for their ordinary living- 
room as well; and a strange place it was. There were houses in 
it, finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life. Sub- 



134 The Cricket on the Hearth 

urban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and 
single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town 
residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of tliese establish- 
ments were already furnished according to estimate, with a 
view to the convenience of Dolls of limited income; others 
could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment's 
notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, 
and upholstery. The nobility and gentry and public in general, 
for whose acconnnodation these tenements were designed, lay 
here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; 
but in denoting their degrees in society, and confining tliem to 
their respective stations (which experience shows to be lament- 
ably difficult in real life), the makers of tliese Dolls had far 
improved on Nature, who is often froward and perverse; for 
they, not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton print, 
and bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences 
which allowed of no mistake. Thus, the Doll-lady of distinction 
had wax limbs of perfect synunetry; but only she and her com- 
peers. The next grade in the social scale being made of leather, 
and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to the common people, 
tliey had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their 
arms and legs, and there they were — established in their 
sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. 

There were various other samples of his handicraft besides 
Dolls in Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noali's arks, in 
which the Birds and Beasts were an unconmionlv tidit fit, I 
assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the 
roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. By a 
bold poetical licence, most of these Noah's arks had knockers 
on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive 
of morning callers and a Postnuni, yet a pleasant finish to the 
outside of the building. There were scores of melancholy 
little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed 
most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other 



The Cricket on the Hearth 135 

instruments of torture; no end of cannon, sliields, swords, 
spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches, 
incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red tape, and coming 
down, head first, on the other side; and there were innumerable 
old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, 
insanely flying over horizontal y)egs, inserted, for the f)urp()se, in 
their own street-doors. Tliere were beasts of all sorts; horses, 
in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four 
pegs with a small tipi)et for a mane, to the thorough-bred rocker 
on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the 
dozens u[)on dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready 
to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, 
so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, 
vice, or weakness that had not its type, immediate or remote, 
in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated form, 
for very little handles will move men and women to as strange 
performances as any Toy was ever made to undertake. 

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat 
at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's dressmaker; Caleb 
painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family 
mansion. 

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his 
absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on 
some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd 
contrast to his occupation and the trivialities about him. But 
trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very 
serious matters of fact: and, apart from this consideration, 1 
am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had b(^en 
a Lord Chamberlain, or a Meml)er of Parliament, or a lawyer, 
or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit 
less whimsical, while 1 have a very great doubt whether they 
would have been as harmless. 

'*So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your 
beautiful new great-coat," said Caleb's daughter. 



136 The Cricket on the Hearth 

"In my beautiful new great-coat," answered Caleb, glancing 
towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sackcloth 
garment previously described was carefully hung up to dry. 

"How glad I am you bought it, father!'* 

*'And of such a tailor too," said Caleb. "Quite a fashion- 
able tailor. It's too good for me." 

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with de- 
light. "Too good, father! What can be too good for you?" 

"I'm half ashamed to wear it, though," said Caleb, watching 
the effect of what he said upon her brightening face, "upon my 
word! ^Yhen I hear the boys and people say behind me, *HiU- 
loa! Here's a swell!' I don't know which way to look. And 
when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and, when I said 
I was a very common man, said, 'No, your Honour! Bless 
your Honour, don't say that!' I was quite ashamed. I really 
felt as if I hadn't a right to wear it." 

Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was in her exultation! 

" I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, " as plainly 
as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue 
coat " 

"Bright blue," said Caleb. 

"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up 
her radiant face; "the colour I can just remember in the blessed 
sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat " 

"INIade loose to the figure," suggested Caleb. 

"Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the Blind Girl, laughing 
heartily; "and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, 
your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair — looking 
so young and handsome!" 

" Halloa ! Halloa ! " said Caleb. " I shall be vain presently ! '* 

"/ think you are already," cried the Blind Girl, pointing at 
him in her glee. "I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I've 
found you out, you see!'* 

How dift'erent the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat 



The Cricket on the Hearth 137 

observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was 
right in that. For years and yc^irs lie had never once crossed 
tliat threshold at his own slow j)ace, but with a footfall counter- 
feited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, 
forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and 
courageous ! 

Heaven knows! ]5ut I think Caleb's vague bewilderment of 
manner may have half originated in his having confused himself 
about himself and everything around him, for the love of his 
Blind Daughter. How could the little man be otherwise than 
bewildered, after labouring for so many years to destroy his 
own identity, and that of all the objects that had any bearing 
on it? 

"There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to 
form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing 
as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixj)ence. What a pity that 
the whole front of the house opens at once ! If there was only a 
staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! 
But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, 
and swindling myself." 

"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father ?" 

"Tired!" echoed Caleb with a great burst of animation. 
"What should tire me, Bertha.? / was never tired. What 
does it mean?" 

To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself 
in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and 
yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in 
one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and 
hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, 
something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assump- 
tion of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand 
times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. 

"What! You're singing, are you ?" said Tackleton, putting 
his head in at the door. "Go it! / can't sing." 



138 The Cricket on the Hearth 

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is 
generally termed a singing face, by any means. 

"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad you 
can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, 
I should think.?" 

"If you could only see him. Bertha, how he's winking at 
me!" whispered Caleb. "Such a man to joke! You'd think, 
if you didn't know him, he was in earnest — wouldn't you now ?^' 

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. 

"The bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to 
sing, they say," grumbled Tackleton. "What about the owl 
that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there any- 
thing that he should be made to do.?" 

"The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whis- 
pered Caleb to his daughter. "Oh, my gracious!" 

"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried tlie smil- 
ing Bertha. 

"Oh! you're there, are you?" answered Tackleton. "Poor 
Idiot!" 

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the 
belief, I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being 
fond of him. 

"Well! and being there, — how are you.?" said Tackleton 
in his grudging way. 

" Oh ! well ; quite well ! x\nd as happy as even you can wish 
me to be. As happy as you would make the whole world, if 
you could!" 

"Poor Idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of reason. 
Not a gleam ! " 

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a 
moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it 
tenderly before releasing it. There was such unspeakable 
affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton 
himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: 



The Cricket on the Hearth 139 

"What's the matter now?" 

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last 
night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when the day 
broke, and the glorious red sun — the red sun, father?" 

"Red in the mornings and the evenings, 15ertlia," said poor 
Caleb with a woeful glance at his eni|)loyer. 

"When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike 
myself against in walking, came into the room, I turned the little 
tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, 
and blessed you for sending them to cheer me!" 

"Bedlam broke loose!" said Tackleton under his breath. 
"We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. 
We're getting on!" 

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared 
vacantly before him while his daughter sjjoke, as if he really 
were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done 
anything to deserve her thanks or not. If he could have been 
a perfectly free agent at that moment, required, on pain of 
death, to kick the toy merchant, or fall at his feet, according 
to his merits, I believe it would have been an even chance which 
course he would have taken. Yet Caleb knew that with his 
own hands he had brought the little rose-tree home for her so 
carefully, and that with his own lips he had forged the innocent 
deception which should help to ke(^}) her from suspecting how 
much, how very much, he every day denied himself, that she 
might be happier. 

"Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little 
cordiality. " Come here." 

"Oh, I can come straight to you! You needn't guide me!" 
she rejoined. 

"Shall I tell you a secret. Bertha?" 

"If you will!" she answered eagerly. 

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light 
the listening head! 



140 The Cricket on the Hearth 

"This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt 
child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you — makes 
her fantastic Picnic here, an't it?" said Tackleton with a strong 
expression of distaste for the whole concern. 

"Yes," replied Bertha. "This is the day." 

"I thought so," said Tackleton. "I should like to join the 
party." 

"Do you hear that, father.^" cried the Blind Girl in an 
ecstasy. 

"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb with the fixed look 
of a sleep-walker; "but I don't believe it. It's one of my lies, 
I've no doubt." 

" You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more 
into company with May Fielding," said Tackleton. "I'm 
going to be married to May." 

"Married!" cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 

"She's such a con-founded idiot," muttered Tackleton, 
"that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! 
Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass coach, bells, 
breakfast, bridecake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all 
the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. 
Don't you know what a wedding is.?" 

"I know," replied the Blind Girl in a gentle tone. "I 
understand!" 

"Do you.?" muttered Tackleton. "It's more than I ex- 
pected. Well! On that account I want to join the party, 
and to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a little some- 
thing or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or 
some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll expect me.?" 

"Yes," she answered. 

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, 
with her hands crossed, musing. 

"I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 
"for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. Caleb!" 



The Cricket on the Hearth 141 

"I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose," thought Caleb. 
"Sir!" 

"Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her." 

*' She never forgets," returned Caleb. "It's one of the few 
things she an't clever in." 

"Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the toy 
merchant with a shrug. "Poor devil!" 

Having delivered himself of which remark with infinite con- 
tempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew. 

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. 
The gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very 
sad. Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing 
some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections 
found no vent in words. 

It was not until Caleb had been occupied some time in 
yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary process 
of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she 
drew near to his working-stool, and, sitting down beside him, 
said: 

"Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my 
patient, willing eyes." 

"Here they are," said Caleb. "Always ready. They are 
more yours than mine. Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. 
What shall your eyes do for you, dear.?" 

"Look round the room, father." 

"All right," said Caleb. "No sooner said than done. 
Bertha." 

"Tell me about it." 

"It's much the same as usual," said Caleb. "Homely, but 
very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers 
on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are 
beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the 
building, — make it very pretty." 

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha's hands could 



142 The Cricket on the Hearth 

busy themselves. But nowhere else were cheerfulness and 
neatness possible in the old crazy shed which Caleb*s fancy so 
transformed. 

"You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as 
when you wear the handsome coat?" said Bertha, touching 
him. 

"Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. "Pretty brisk, 
thoucjh." ^ 

"Father," said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, 
and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me something about 
May. She is very fair ? " 

"She is indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was 
quite a rare thing to Caleb not to have to draw on his invention. 

"Her hair is dark," said Bertha pensively, "darker than 
mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often 
loved to hear it. Her shape " 

"There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it," said 
Caleb. " And her eyes ! " 

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, 
and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pres- 
sure which he understood too well. 

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then 
fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl, his infallible 
resource in all such difficulties. 

"Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you 
know, of hearing about him. — Now, was I ever.^" she said 
hastily. 

"Of course not," answered Caleb, "and with reason." 

"Ah! With how much reason!" cried the Blind Girl. 
With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so 
pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, 
as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. 

"Then tell me again about him, dear father," said Bertha. 
"Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 143 

Honest and true, I am sure it Is. The manly heart that tries to 
cloak all favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, 
beats in its every look and glance." 

"And makes it noble," added Caleb in his quiet desperation. 

"And makes it noble," cried the Blind Girl. "He is older 
than May, father." 

"Ye-es," said Caleb reluctantly. "He's a little older than 
May. But that don't signify." 

"Oh, father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity 
and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant 
friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working 
for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk 
to him awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these 
would be! What opportunities for proving all her truth and 
her devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?" 

"No doubt of it," said Caleb. 

"I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!" exclaimed 
the Blind Girl. And, saying so, she laid her poor blind face on 
Caleb's shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost 
sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her. 

In the meantime there had been a pretty sharp commotion 
at John Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally 
couldn't think of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get 
the Baby under way took time. Not that there was much of 
the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but 
there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to 
be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby was got, 
by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you 
might have rationally supposed that another touch or two 
would finish him off, and turn him out a tiptop Baby challenging 
the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, 
and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between 
two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state of 
inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring 



144 The Cricket on the Hearth 

violently, to partake of — well ? I would rather say, if you'll 
permit me to speak generally — of a slight repast. After which 
he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peeryb ingle took advantage of 
this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever 
you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short 
truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion 
so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with 
herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, 
dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course with- 
out the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being 
all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peery- 
bingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its 
body, and a sort of nankeen raised pie for its head; and so, in 
course of time, they all three got down to the door, where the 
old horse had already taken more than the full value of his 
day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road 
with his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be 
dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, 
and tempting him to come on without orders. 

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. 
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you 
think that was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift 
her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, 
saying, "John! How can jou? Think of Tilly!" 

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs on any 
terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was a fatality 
about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; 
and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent with- 
out recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as 
Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. 
But, as this might be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it. 

"John! You've got the basket with the Veal and Ham Pie 
and things, and the bottles of Beer ? " said Dot. " If you haven't 
you must turn round again this very minute." 



The Cricket on the Hearth 145 

"You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier, "to be 
talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter 
of an hour behind my time." 

"I am sorry for it, John," said Dot in a great bustle, "but 
I really could not think of going to Bertha's — I would not do 
it, John, on any account — without the Veal and Ham Pie and 
things, and the bottles of Beer. Way!" 

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't 
mind it at all. 

"Oh, do way, John!" said Mrs. Peerybingle. "Please!" 

"It'll be time enough to do that," returned John, "when I 
begin to leave things behind me. The basket's safe enough." 

"What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to 
have said so at once, and save me such a turn! I declare I 
wouldn't go to Bertha's without the Veal and Ham Pie and 
things, and the bottles of Beer, for any money. Regularly 
once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John, have 
we made our little Picnic there. If anything was to go wrong 
with it, I should almost think we were never to be lucky 
again." 

"It was a kind thought in the first instance," said the Carrier; 
"and I honour you for it, little woman." 

"My dear John!" replied Dot, turning very red. "Don't 
talk about honouring me. Good gracious!" 

"By-the-bye" — observed the Carrier — "that old gentle- 
man " 

Again so visibly and instantly embarrassed! 

"He's an odd fish," said the Carrier, looking straight along 
the road before them. "I can't make him out. I don't be- 
lieve there's any harm in him." 

"None at all. I'm — I'm sure there's none at all." 

"Yes," said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face 
by the great earnestness of her manner. "I am glad you feel 
so certain of it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious 



146 The Cricket on the Hearth 

that he should have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on 
lodging with us; an't it? Things come about so strangely." 

"So very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely 
audible. 

"However, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said John, 
"and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied 
upon, like a gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with him this 
morning: he can hear me better already, he says, as he gets 
more used to my voice. He told me a great deal about him- 
self, and I told him a good deal about myself, and a rare lot of 
questions he asked me. I gave him information about my 
having two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right 
from our house and back again; another day to the left from 
our house and back again (for he's a stranger, and don't know 
the names of places about here) ; and he seemed quite pleased. 
*Why, then I shall be returning home to-night your way,' he 
says, 'when I thought you'd be coming in an exactly opposite 
direction. That's capital! I may trouble you for another 
lift, perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.' 
He was sound asleep, sure-ly! — Dot! what are you thinking of .^" 

"Thinking of, John.? I — I was listening to you." 

"Oh! That's all right!" said the honest Carrier. "I was 
afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on 
so long as to set you thinking about something else. I was very 
near it, I'll be bound." 

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, 
in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in 
John Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had some- 
thing to say. Though it might only be "How are you.^" and, 
indeed, it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back 
again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a nod 
and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal as a 
long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on 
foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for 



The Cricket on the Hearth 147 

the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great 
deal to be said on both sides. 

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recogni- 
tions of, and by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could 
have done ! Everybody knew him all along the road — espe- 
cially the fowls and pigs, who, when they saw him approaching, 
with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, 
and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, 
immediately withdrew into remote back-settlements, without 
waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had busi- 
ness elsewhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the 
wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the 
midst of all the Dame Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, mag- 
nifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public- 
houses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody 
or other might have been heard to cry, "Halloa! here's Boxer!" 
and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least 
two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his 
pretty wife Good day. 

The packages and parcels for the errand cart were numerous ; 
and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them 
out, which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. 
Some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and 
other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and 
other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about their 
parcels, and John had such a lively interest in all the parcels, 
that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were articles to 
carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in 
reference to the adjustment and disposition of which councils 
had to be holden by the Carrier and the senders : at which Boxer 
usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long 
fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages, and bark- 
ing himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents. Dot was the 
amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; 



148 The Cricket on the Hearth 

and as she sat there, looking on — a charming Httle portrait 
framed to admiration by the tilt — there was no lack of nudg- 
ings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the 
younger men. And this delighted John the Carrier beyond 
measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, know- 
ing that she didn't mind it — that, if anything, she rather liked 
it perhaps. 

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; 
and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not 
Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a 
cart, on any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the 
crowning circumstance of earthly hope. Not the Baby, I'll 
be sworn; for it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound 
asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that 
blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way. 

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could 
see a great deal! It's astonishing how much you may see in a 
thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look 
for it. Why, even to sit watching for the Fairyrings in the 
fields, and for the patches of hoar frost still lingering in the shade, 
near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation, to make no 
mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves 
came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The 
hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted 
garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. 
It was agreeable to contem})late; for it made the fireside warmer 
in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The 
river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good 
pace — which was a great point. The canal was rather slow 
and torpid; that must be admitted. Never mind. It would 
freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there 
would be skating and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen 
up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron 
chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



149 



In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stul)l)le 
burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flar- 
ing through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in 
it, until, in consequence, as she observed, of i\w, smoke "gelling 
up her nose," Miss Slowboy choked — she could do anything 
of that sort, on the smallest provocation — and woke the Jiaby, 
who wouldn't go to sleep again. But Boxer, who was in ad- 
vance some (juarter of a mile or so, had already passed the out- 
posts of the town, and gained the corner of the stre(;t where 
Caleb and his daughter lived; and, long before they had reached 
the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting 
to receive them. 

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of 
his own, in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me 
fully that he knew her to be blind. lie never sought to attract 
her attention by looking at her, as he often did with other jx^ople, 
but touched her invariably. What ex[)eri(mce he could (^ver 
have had of blind people or blind dogs I don't know. lie had 
never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. I$oxer the elder, 
nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, 
ever ])vxin visited with blindness, that I am awan^ of. lie; rriay 
have found it out for himself, j)erliaps, but he had got hold of it 
somehow; and therefore he had hold of Berlha too, by the skirt, 
and kept hold, until Mrs. Peerybingle and the ]5aby, and Miss 
Slowboy and the basket, were all got saf(;ly within doors. 

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother — 
a little querulous chi[> of an old lady with a peevish face, who, 
in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed 
to be a most transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of 
having once been Ix^tter off, or of labouring under an impression 
that she might have been, if something had ha[>pened which 
never did hajipen, and seemed to have never been particularly 
likely to come to pass — but it's all the same — was very genteel 
and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there, 



150 The Cricket on the Hearth 

doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as per- 
fectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a 
fresh young salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid. 

"May! My dear old friend!" cried Dot, running up to 
meet her. "AYliat a happiness to see you!" 

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; 
and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to 
see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all 
question. May was very pretty. 

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, 
how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another 
pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, 
and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. Now, 
this was not at all the case, either with Dot or May; for ]May's 
face set off Dot's, and Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and 
agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very near saying when 
he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters — 
which was the only improvement you could have suggested. 

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to 
relate, a tart besides — but we don't mind a little dissipation 
when our brides are in the case; we don't get married every day 
— and, in addition to these dainties, there were the Veal and 
Ham Pie, and "things," as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which 
were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. 
^Yhen the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's 
contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking pota- 
toes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any 
other viands), Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the 
post of honour. For the better gracing of this place at the high 
festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, 
calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. 
She also wore her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die! 

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow 
were side by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the 



The CmcKET on the Hearth 151 

table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from 
every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might 
have nothing else to knock the Baby's head against. 

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared 
at her and at the company. The venerable old gentleman at 
the street-doors [(who were all in full action) showed especial 
interest in the party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if 
they were listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly 
over and over, a great many times, without halting for breath — 
as in a frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings. 

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a 
fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, 
they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get 
on at all; and the more cheerful his intended bride became in 
Dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them 
together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in the 
manger, was Tackleton; and, when they laughed and he couldn't, 
he took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing 
at him. 

"Ah, May!" said Dot. "Dear, dear, what changes! To 
talk of those merry school days makes one young again." 

"Why, you an't particularly old at any time, are you?" said 
Tackleton. 

"Look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned 
Dot. "He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, 
John.P" 

"Forty," John replied. 

"How many you'W add to Mary's, I am sure I don't know," 
said Dot, laughing. "But she can't be much less than a hun- 
dred years of age on her next birthday." 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum that 
laugh, though. And he looked as if he could have twisted 
Dot's neck comfortably. 

"Dear, dear!" said Dot. "Only to remember how we used 



152 The Cricket on the Hearth 



to talk, at school, about the husbands wo wouki choose. I don't 
know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how 
Hvely mine was not to be! And as to May's! — Ah dear! 1 
don't know whether to huigh or cry, when 1 think what silly 
girls we were." 

^lay seemed to know which to do: for the colour flashed into 
her face, and tears stood in her eyes. 

"Even the very persons themselves — real live young men 
— we tixed on sometimes," said Dot. "We little thought how 
things would come about. 1 never fixed on John. I'm sure; I 
never so much as thought of hin\. And, if 1 had told you you 
were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton. why, you'd have 
slapped me. Wouldn't you. May.-" 

rhouii'h Mav didn't sav ves, she certainlv didn't sav no, or 
express no, by any means. 

Tackleton laughed — quite shouted, he laughed so loud, 
.h^hn reerybingle laughed too, in his orditiary good-natured and 
contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh to 
Tackleton's. 

"You couldn't help youi*selves, for all that. You couldn't 
ivsist us, you see," said Tackleton. "Here we are! Here we 
aiv! AVhciv are your gay young bridegrooms now?" 

"Some of them arc dead," said Dot: "and some of them 
forgi>tten. Some of them, if they could stand among us at this 
moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; would 
not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and we (•(>///(/ 
forgt^t them so. No! they would not believe one word of it!" 

"AVhy. Dot!" cxclainuHl the Carrier. "Little woman!" 

She had spoken with such earnestness and tire, that she 
stood in need of some recalling to hei^elf. without doubt. Iler 
husband's check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he 
supjHistHl, to shield old Tackleton; but it pnn'od etfei^tual, for 
she stopjHxl, and said no mort\ There was an uncommon 
agitation, even in her silence, which the wary Tackleton, who 



The Crick k'i' on t \i k Hearth 153 



had bronpjbt his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted closely, 
and reineinbered to soine purpose too. 

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with 
her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had 
passed. The good lady her mother now interf)osed, observing, 
in the first instance, that girls W(;re girls, and bygones bygones, 
and that, so long as young f)eople were young and thoughtless, 
they would proba})ly conduct themselves like young and thought- 
less f)ersons: with two or Ihrec^ other positions of Ji, no less sound 
and incontrovertible ('Iijiraftter. She then remarked, in a de- 
vout spirit, that sh(^ thanked Heaven she had always foiind in 
her daughter May a dutiful and obedient child: for which she 
took no credit to herself, though slie had every reason to believe 
it was entirely owing to hers(^lf. With regard to Mr. Ta(;kl(>ton, 
she said. That he was in a moral point of vic^w an undenial)le 
individual, and That he was in an eligible point of view a son- 
in-law to be desired, no one in their s(5nses could doubt. (She 
was very emphatic here.) With regard to the family into which 
he was so soon al)out, after some solicitation, to b(^ admitted, 
she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, although redm^ed in 
purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and that if certain cir- 
cumstan(;es, not wholly unconnected, sIk^ would go so far as to 
say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more 
particularly refer, had hap})en(;d din'crcntly, it might perhaps 
have been in possession of wealth. She then remarked that she 
would not allude to the })ast, and would not mention that her 
daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. 'VuvkUiion; 
and that she would not say a great many other things which 
she did say at great lengtli. Finally, she d(;livered it as the 
general result of her observation and (^xix^icmce, that those 
marriages in which there was least of what was romantically 
and sillily called love, were always the ha})i)i(;st; and that she 
anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss — not rapturous 
bliss; but the solid, steady-going article — from the af)i)roach- 



154 The Cricket on the Hearth 



ing nuptials. She concluded by informing the company that 
to-morrow was the day she had lived for expressly; and that, 
when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to be 
packed up and disposed of in any genteel place of burial. 

As these remarks were quite unanswerable — which is the 
happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the 
purpose — they changed the current of the conversation, and 
diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham Pie, the 
cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that the 
bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed 
To-morrow: the AVedding-day ; and called upon them to drink 
a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his journey. 

For you ought to know. that he only rested there, and gave 
the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or live miles 
farther on; and, when he returned in the evening, he called for 
Dot, and took another rest on his way home. This was the 
order of the day on all the Picnic occasions, and had been ever 
since their institution. 

There were two persons present, besides the bride and bride- 
groom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. One 
of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself 
to any small occurrence of the moment; the other, Bertha, who 
rose up hurriedly before the rest, and left the table. 

"Good-bye!" said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his 
dreadnought coat. "I shall be back at the old time. Good- 
bye all!" 

"Good-bye, John," returned Caleb. 

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the 
same unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with 
an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression. 

"Good-bye, young shaver!" said the jolly Carrier, bending 
down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon 
her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and, strange to say, 
without damage) in a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; "good- 



The Cricket on the Hearth 155 



bye! Time will come, I suppose, when you'll turn out into the 
cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe 
and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh ? Where's Dot ?" 

"I'm here, John!" she said, starting. 

"Come, come!" returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding 
hands. "Where's the pipe?" 

"I quite forgot the pipe, John." 

Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard oi? She! 
Forgot the pipe ! 

"I'll — I'll fill it directly. It's soon done." 

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual 
place — the Carrier's dreadnought pocket — with the little 
pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it; but 
her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was 
small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled 
terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it, those little 
oflSces in which I have commended her discretion, were vilely 
done from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton 
stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, 
whenever it met hers — or caught it, for it can hardly be said to 
have ever met another eye : rather being a kind of trap to snatch 
it up — augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree. 

"Why, what a clumsy Dot you are this afternoon!" said 
John. "I could have done it better myself, I verily believe!" 

With these good-natured words, he strode away, and pres- 
ently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, 
and the cart, making lively music down the road. What time 
the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his blind daughter, with 
the same expression on his face. 

"Bertha!" said Caleb, softly. "What has happened.? How 
changed you are, my darling, in a few hours — since this morn- 
ing! Fow silent and dull all day! What is it.? Tell me!" 

"Oh, father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting into 
tears. "Oh, my hard, hard fate!" 



156 The Cricket ox the Hearth 

Caleb drew his hand acrcvss his eves before he nswered 
her. 

"But think how cheerful and how happy you have been. 
Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many peonle." 

"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Al\^ .lys so 
mindful of me! Always so kind to me!" 

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. 

** To be — to be blind. Bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, 
"is a great affliction: but '* 

'*I have never felt it!" cried the Blind Girl. "I have ' ver 
felt it in its fulnesis. Never! I have sometimes wished that I 
could see you, or could see liim — only once, dear father, c nly 
for one little minute — that I might know what it is I treasnre 
up," she laid her hands upon her breast, ** and hold hen?! That 
I might be sure I have it rig '^t! And sometimes (but then I was 
a child"^ I have wept in my prayers at night, to think that, when 
your images aseendeii frx^m my heart to Heaven, tliey might net 
be the true ivsemblance of yourselves. But I have never hafl 
these feeling's long. They have piissed awav, and left me tran 
quil and contented." 

**And they will again," said Caleb. 

"But, father! Oh. my good gentle father, bear with me. if 
I am wickevi!" said the Blind Girl. "This is not the sorrow 
that so weighs me down!" 

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; 
she was so earnest and pathetic. But he did not understand 
her yet, 

"Bring her to me," said Bertha, **I cannot hold it closed 
and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father!" 

She knew he hesitated, and said, "May. Bring May!" 

May heard the mention of her name, and. coming quietly 
towards her, touched her on the arm. The BUnd Girl turned 
immediatelv, and held her bv both hands. 

• * 

"Look into mv face. Dear heart. Sweet heart!" said Bertha. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 157 



"Read it mih your beautiful eyes, and tell mc if the truth is 
wrilleii on it." 

"Dear Bertha, yes!" 

The Blind Girl, still upturning the blank sightless face, 
down A .lich the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these 
words : 

"There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for 
your good, })right May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful 
recollection stronger than the deej) rememl)ra,nce which is stonul 
therr of the many many times when, in the full [)ri(le of siglit 
and beauty, you have had consideration for Hliiid IJertlia, even 
whe;i we two were children, or when 15ertha was as much a child 
as ever })lin(lness can be! Every blessing on your head! Light 
upon your ha|)py course! Not the less, my dear May," — and 
she drew towards her in a closer gra p, — " not the less, my bird, 
because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be His wife has 
wning my heart almost to breaking! Father, May, Mary! 
Oh, forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to 
jlieve the weariness of my dark lile: and for the sake of the be- 
lief you have in me, when 1 call Heaven to witness that I could 
not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!" 

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, 

md clas[)ed her garments in an attitude of mingled suf)plication 

and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in 

her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her 

friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress. 

"Great Power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow 
with the trutli, "have 1 deceived her from her cradle, but to 
break her heart at last?" 

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, 
busy little Dot — for such she was, whatever faults she had, 
and however you may learn to hate her, in good time — it was 
well for all of them, I say, that she was there, or where this 
would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering 



158 The Cricket on the Hearth 

her self-possession, interposeil, before May eoiiKl reply, or Caleb 
say another ^^ord. 

"Come, oonie, dear Bertha! eonie away with me! Give 
her your arm, ^lay! So. How composed she is. you see, 
already; and how good it is of her to mind us," said the cheery 
little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "Come away, 
dear Bertha! Come! and here's her good father will come with 
her, won't you. Caleb ? To — be — sure!" 

AVell, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it 
nuist have been an obdurate natuiv that could have withstood 
her intluenee. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha 
away, that they might comfort and console each other, as she 
knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back, — 
the saying is, as fresh as any daisy: / say fresher — to mount 
guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap 
and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making dis- 
coveries. 

"So briuii n\e the precious Babv. Tillv." said she. drawinix 
a chair to the tiiv: "and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. 
Fielding, Tilly, will tell n\e all about the management of Babies, 
and put n\e right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can 
be. Won't yon, ^Irs. Fielding:" 

Not even the Welsh Ciant, who. according to the popular 
expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical opera- 
tion u}x^n himself, in emulation of a juggling trick achieved by 
liis arch enemy at breakfast-time: not even he fell half so ivadily 
into the snare prepared for him as the old lady into this artful 
pitfall. The fact of Taekleton having walked out: and fnrther- 
moiw of two or three jHX>ple having been talking together at a 
distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; 
was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewail- 
ment of that m^^sterious con^ndsion in the Indigo Trade, for 
four-and-twenty houi*s. But this becoming deference to her 
experience, on the part of the young mother, was so irresistible. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



1^9 



that after a short affectation of Immility, she began to enlighten 
her with the best grace in the world; and, sitting bolt upright 
before the wicked Dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more 
infallible domestic recipes and ])recepts than would (if iuUnl 
on) have utterly destroyed and done up that Young Peery- 
bingle, though he had been an Infant Samson. 

To change the theme. Dot did a little needlework — she 
carried the contents of a whole workbox in her }K)cket; however 
she contrived it, / don't know — then did a little nursing; then 
a little more needlework; then had a little whispering chat with 
May, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, 
which was quite her manner always, found it a very short after- 
noon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of 
this Institution of the Picnic that she should pei-form all Bertha's 
household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and 
set the tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. 
Then she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which 
Caleb had contrived for Bertha, and played them very well; 
for Nature had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for 
music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had any to 
wear. By this time it was the established hour for having tea; 
and Tackleton came back again to share the meal, and spend 
the evening. 

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb 
had sat down to his afternoon's work. l$ut he couldn't settle 
to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. 
It was touching to see him sitting idle on his working stool, re- 
garding her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, "Have I 
deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart?'* 

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing 
more to do in washing up the cups and saucers ; in a word — 
for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off — 
when the time drew nigh for expecting the Carrier's return in 
every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed again, her 



i6o The Cricket on the Hearth 



colour came and went, and she was very restless. Not as good 
wives are when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It 
was another sort of restlessness from that. 

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. 
The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw 
of Boxer at the door! 

"Whose step is that.?" cried Bertha, starting up. 

"Whose step.?" returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, 
with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night 
air. "Why, mine." 

"The other step," said Bertha. "The man's tread behind 
you!" 

"She is not to be deceived," observed the Carrier, laughing. 
"Come along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!" 

He spoke in a loud tone ; and, as he spoke, the deaf old gentle- 
man entered. 

" He's not so much a stranger that you haven't seen him once, 
Caleb," said the Carrier. "You'll give him house room till 
we go.?" 

"Oh, surely, John, and take it as an honour!" 

"He's the best company on earth to talk secrets in," said 
John. "I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em I can 
tell you. Sit down, sir. All friends here, and glad to see you!" 

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply 
corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his 
natural tone, "A chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to 
sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. 
He's easily pleased." 

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her 
side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, 
to describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly now, with 
scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had 
come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest 
concerning him. 



The Cricket on the Hearth i6i 



The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, 
and fonder of his little wife than ever. 

"A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, encirchng 
her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; 
'*and yet I like her somehow. See yonder, Dot!" 

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think 
she trembled. 

"He's — ha, ha, ha! — he's full of admiration for you!" 
said the Carrier. "Talked of nothing else the whole way here. 
Why, he's a brave old boy! I like him for it!" 

*'I wish he had a better subject, John," she said with an 
uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially. 

"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's no 
such thing. Come! off with the great-coat, off with the thick 
shawl, off with the heavy wrappers ! and a cosy half -hour by the 
fire My humble service, mistress. A game at cribbage, you 
and I? That's hearty. The cards and board. Dot. And a 
glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife!" 

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who, accepting it 
with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. 
At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes with a smile, or 
now and then called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, 
and advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary being 
a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in 
respect of pegging more than she was entitled to, required such 
vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. 
Thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the 
cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his 
shoulder restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton. 

"I am sorry to disturb you — but a word directly." 

"Pm going to deal," returned the Carrier. "It's a crisis.'* 

"It is," said Tackleton. "Come here, man!" 

There was that in his pale face which made the other rise 
immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. 



i62 The Cricket on the Hearth 



"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, "I am sorry 
for this. I am indeed. 1 have been afraid of it. I have sus- 
pected if from the first.'* 

"AVhat is it.''" asked the Carrier with a frightened aspect. 

"Hush! I'll show you, if you'll come with me." 

The Carrier accompanied him without another word. They 
went across a yard, where the stai-s were shininor, and bv a little 
side-door, into Tackleton's own counting-house, where there 
was a class window, commandiuir the ware-room, which was 
closed for the night. There was no light in the counting-house 
itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and 
consequently the window was bright. 

**A moment!" said Tackleton. "Can you bear to look 
through that window, do you think.-" 

"AVhy not?" returned the Carrier. 

"A moment more," said Tackleton. "Don't commit any 
violence. It's of no use. It's dangerous too. You're a strong- 
nuule nuin; and you might do murder before you know it." 

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if 
he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and 
he saw 

Oh, Shadow on the Hearth! Oh, truthful Cricket! Oh, 
perfidious wife! 

He saw her with the old man — old no longer, but erect and 
ffallant — bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won 
his way into their desolate and miserable home. He saw her 
listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and 
suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly 
down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by which they 
had entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn — to have 
the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view! — and 
saw her, with her own hands, adjust the lie upon his head, 
laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspicious nature! 

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would 



The Cricket on the Hearth 163 

have beaten down a lion. But, opening it immediately again, 
he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender 
of her even then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a 
desk, and was as weak as any infant. 

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and 
parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going home. 

"Now, John dear! Good night. May! Good night. Bertha!" 

Could she kiss them.!^ Could she be blithe and cheerful in 
her parting.^ Could she venture to reveal her face to them 
without a blush.? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and 
she did all this. 

Tilly was hushing the baby, and she crossed and recrossed 
Tackleton a dozen times, repeating drowsily: 

"Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, then, wring 
its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from 
its cradles but to break its hearts at last!" 

" Now, Tilly, give me the Baby ! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. 
Where's John, for goodness' sake.?" 

" He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said Tackleton; 
who helped her to her seat. 

"My dear John! Walk.? To-night?'* 

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the 
affirmative; and, the false stranger and the little nurse being in 
their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious 
Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and 
round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever. 

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and 
her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his 
daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying, 
in his wistful contemplation of her, " Have I deceived her from 
her cradle, but to break her heart at last.?" 

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby had all 
stopped and run down long ago. In the faint light and silence, 
the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with 



164 The Cricket on the Hearth 



distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street- 
doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and 
ankles, the wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasts upon their 
way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding-School out walking, 
might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fan- 
tastic wonder at Dot being false, or Tackleton beloved, under 
any combination of circumstances. 



CHIRP THE THIRD 

THE Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten when the Carrier 
sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn 
that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten 
melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back 
into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little door behind 
him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his feelings. 

If the little Hay-maker had been armed with the sharpest of 
scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's heart, he 
never could have gashed and wounded it as Dot had done. 

It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held 
together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, 
spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endear- 
ment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently 
and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so 
strong in right, so weak in wrong,— that it could cherish neither 
passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the broken 
image of its Idol. 

But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, 
now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise 
within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The 
Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would 
take him to his chamber door. One blow would beat it in. 
*'You might do murder before you know it," Tackleton had 
said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to 
grapple with him hand to hand ? He was the younger man. 

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his 
mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging 
act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place 



1 66 The Cricket on the Hearth 

which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where 
tlie timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows 
when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the stormy 
weather. 

He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had 
won the heart tluit lie had never touched. Some lover of her 
early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, for whom 
she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her so happy 
by his side. Oh, agony to think of it! 

She had been above-stairs with the Baby; getting it to bed. 
As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, 
without his knowledge — in the turning of the rack of his great 
misery, he lost all other sounds — and put her little stool at his 
feet. He only knew it when he felt her hand upon his own, and 
saw her looking up into his face. 

With wonder.^ No. It was his first impression, and he 
was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not with 
wonder. ^Yith an eager and inquiring look; but not with wonder. 
At first it was alarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, 
wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there 
was nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent 
head, and falling hair. 

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield 
at that moment, he had too much of its diviner property of 
Mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it 
against her. But he could not bear to see her crouching down 
upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, with love 
and pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and left 
him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant 
place beside him rather than her so long-cherished presence. 
This in itself was anguish keener than all, reminding him how 
desolate he was become, and how the great bond of his life was 
rent asunder. 

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have 




.^ 



o 



5ri 












^~ o 

•to 

I ^ 



=r^ 



The Cricket on the Hearth 167 



better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with 
her little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose 
his wrath against his enemy. He looked about him for a weapon. 

There was a gun hanging on the wall. He took it down, 
and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious 
Stranger's room. He knew the gun was loaded. Some shadowy 
idea that it was just to shoot this man like a wild beast seized 
him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into a monstrous 
demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder 
thoughts, and setting up its undivided empire. 

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, 
but artfully transforming them. Changing them into scourges 
to drive him on. Turning water into blood, love into hate, 
gentleness into blind ferocity. Her image, sorrowing, humbled, 
but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with resistless 
power, never left his mind; but, staying there, it urged him to 
the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved 
his fingers to the trigger; and cried "Kill him! In his bed!" 

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he 
already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in 
his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for God's sake, by 
the window 

When suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole 
chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth 
began to Chirp! 

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even 
hers, could so have moved and softened him. The artless 
words in which she had told him of her love for this same Cricket 
were once more freshly spoken; her trembling, earnest manner 
at the moment was again before him ; her pleasant voice — oh, 
what a voice it was for making household music at the fireside 
of an honest man ! — thrilled through and through his better 
nature, and awoke it into life and action. 

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep. 



i68 The Cricket on the Hearth 



awakened from a frightful dream ; and put the gun aside. Chisp- 
ing his hands before his faee, he then sat down again beside 
the fire, and found reUef in tears. 

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and 
stood in Fairy shape before him. 

"*I love it/ said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well 
remembered, "*for the many tin\es I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me.'" 

*'She said so!" cried the Carrier. "True!" 

'"This has been a happy home, John! and I love the Cricket 
for its sake!'" 

"It has been. Heaven knows," returned the Carrier. "She 
made it happy, always, — until now." 

"So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, jo}'ful, busy, 
and light-hearted!" said the Voice. 

"Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did," returned 
the Carrier. 

The Voice, correcting him, said "do." 

The Carrier repeated "as I did." But not firmly. His 
faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its 
own way for itself and him. 

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and 
said : 

" Upon your own hearth " 

"The hearth she has blighted," interposed the Carrier. 

"The hearth she has — how often! -^ blessed and brightened, 
said the Cricket; "the hearth which, but for her, were only a 
few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, 
through her, the Altar of your Home; on which you have nightly 
sacritioed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up 
the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an over- 
flowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has 
gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense 
tliat is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples 



The Cricket on the Hearth 169 



of this world! — Upon your own hearth; In its quiet sanctuary; 
surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! 
Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language of your 
hearth and home!" 

"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier. 

"All things that speak the language of your hearth and home 
must plead for her!" returned the Cricket. "For they speak 
the truth." 

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, con- 
tinued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside 
him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting 
them before him, as in a glass or picture. It was not a solitary 
Presence. From the hearth-stone, from the chimney, from 
the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the 
walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without, and the 
cupboard within, and the household implements; from every- 
thing and every place with which she had ever been familiar, 
and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of her- 
self in her unhappy husband's mind, — Fairies came trooping 
forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy 
and bestir themselves. To do all honour to her image. To pull 
him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. To cluster 
round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. 
To try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To show 
that they were fond of it, and loved it; and that there was not 
one ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to claim knowledge 
of it — none but their playful and a[)i)roving selves. 

His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always 
there. 

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to her- 
self. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The Fairy 
figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one 
prodigious concentrated stare, and seemed to say, "Is this the 
light wife you are mourning for?" 



170 The Cricket on the Hearth 

There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, 
and noisy tongues, and laugliter. A crowd of young merry- 
makers came pouring in, among whom were May Fielding and 
a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of them all; as young 
as any of them too. They came to summon her to join their 
party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were made for dan- 
cing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, 
and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready 
spread; with an exulting defiance that rendered her more charm- 
ing then she was before. x\nd so she merrily dismissed them, 
nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed 
out, with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and 
drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers — 
and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help 
it. And yet indifference was not her character. Oh no! For 
presently there came a certain Carrier to the door; and, bless 
her, what a welcome she bestowed upon him! 

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and 
seemed to say, "Is this the wife who has forsaken you ?" 

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture : call it what you 
will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood under- 
neath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other 
objects. But, the nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it 
off again. And Dot again was there. Still bright and beauti- 
ful. 

Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and 
resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in 
the musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood. 

The night — I mean the real night : not going by Fairy 
clocks — was wearing now; and, in this stage of the Carrier's 
thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. 
Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also in his mind; 
and he could think more soberly of what had happened. 

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon 



The Cricket on the Hearth 171 



the glass — always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined — 
it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the 
Fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their 
little arms and legs with inconceivable activity to rub it out. 
And whenever they got at Dot again, and showed her to him 
once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most 
inspiring manner. 

They never showed her otherwise than beautiful and bright, 
for they were Household Spirits to whom falsehood is an annihi- 
lation; and being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one 
active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the light 
and sun of the Carrier's Home.^ 

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed 
her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, 
and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and 
leaning in a staid demure old way upon her husband's arm, 
attempting — she ! such a bud of a little woman — to convey the 
idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and 
of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be 
a mother; yet, in the same breath, they showed her laughing at 
the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt collar 
to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room 
to teach him how to dance! 

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed 
her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness 
and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those 
influences into Caleb Plummer's home, heaped up and running 
over. The Blind Girl's love for her, and trust in her, and grati- 
tude to her; her own good busy way of setting Bertha's thanks 
aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of 
the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really work- 
ing hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision 
of those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham Pie and the 
bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and 



1/2 The Cricket on the Hearth 



taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from 
her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the 
establishment — a something necessary to it, which it couldn't 
be without, — all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. 
And once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, 
and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress 
and fondled her, "Is this the wife who has betrayed your con- 
fidence?" 

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful 
night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with 
her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. 
As he had seen her last. And when they found her thus, they 
neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round 
her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one another, 
to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him altogether. 

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars 
grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still 
sat, musing, in the chimney-corner. He had sat there, with his 
head upon his hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket 
had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he 
had listened to its voice. All night the Household Fairies had 
been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blame- 
less in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it. 

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed 
himself. He couldn't go about his customary cheerful avoca- 
tions — he wanted spirit for them — but it mattered the less 
that it was Tackleton's wedding-day, and he had arranged to 
make his rounds by proxy. He had thought to have gone 
merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. 
It was their own wedding-day too. Ah ! how little he had looked 
for such a close to such a year! 

The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him an early 
visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro before 
his own door many minutes, when he saw the toy merchant 



The Cricket on the Hearth 173 



coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise drew nearer, 
he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his 
marriage, and that he had decorated his horse's head with 
flowers and favours. 

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackle- 
ton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive 
than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts 
had other occupation. 

"John Peeryb ingle ! " said Tackleton with an air of condo- 
lence. "My good fellow, how do you find yourself this morn- 
ing?" 

"I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton," returned 
the Carrier, shaking his head: "for I have been a good deal dis- 
turbed in my mind. But it's over now ! Can you spare me half 
an hour or so, for some private talk?" 

"I came on purpose," returned Tackleton, alighting. "Never 
mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over 
this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay." 

The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it be- 
fore him, they turned into the house. 

"You are not married before noon," he said, "I think.?" 

"No," answered Tackleton. "Plenty of time. Plenty of 
time." 

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping 
at the Stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a 
few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying 
all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; 
and she was knocking very loud, and seemed frightened. 

"If you please I can't make nobody hear," said Tilly, look- 
ing round. "I hope nobody an't gone and been and died if 
you please!" 

This philanthropic wish Miss Slowboy emphasized with 
various new raps and kicks at the door, which led to no result 
whatever. 



174 The Cricket on the Hearth 



"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious." 

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed 
him to go if he would. 

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too 
kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. 
But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and, as it opened 
easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon came running 
out again. 

"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton in his ear, "I hope 
there has been nothing — nothing rash in the night .^" 

The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 

"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the window's 
open. I don't see any marks — to be sure, it's almost on a 
level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been 
some — some scuffle. Eh ? " 

He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked 
at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his 
whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the 
truth out of him. 

"Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went into 
that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, 
and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free- 
will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from 
house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he 
had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done 
with him!" 

" Oh ! — Well, I think he has got off pretty easy," said Tackle- 
ton, taking a chair. 

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and 
shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before pro- 
ceeding. 

"You showed me last night," he said at length, "my wife 
— my wife that I love — secretly " 

"And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 175 



" — Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him oppor- 
tunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't 
have rather seen than that. I think there's no man in the world 
I wouldn't have rather had to show it me." 

"I confess to having had my suspicions always," said Tackle- 
ton. "And that has made me objectionable here, I know." 

"But, as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not mind- 
ing him; "and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love" 

his voice, and eye, and hand grew steadier and firmer as he re- 
peated these words: evidently in pursuance of a steadfast pur- 
pose — "as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and 
just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my 
breast, and know what my mind is upon the subject. For it's 
settled," said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. "And 
nothing can shake it now." 

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent about its 
being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was 
overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and un- 
polished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, 
which nothing but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the 
man could have imparted. 

" I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier " with very 
little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very 
well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, be- 
cause I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father's house; 
because I knew how precious she was ; because she had been my 
life for years and years. There's many men I can't compare 
with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I 
think!" 

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his 
foot, before resuming: 

"I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, 
I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value 
better than another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, 



176 The Cricket on the Hearth 

and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. 
And, in the end, it came about, and we were married!" 

"Hah!" said Tackleton with a significant shake of his head. 

"I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I 
knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be," 
pursued the Carrier. "But I had not — I feel it now — sufli- 
ciently considered her." 

"To be sure," said Tackleton. "Giddiness, frivolity, fickle- 
ness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out of 
sight! Hah!" 

"You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier with 
some sternness, "till you understand me; and you're wide of 
doing so. If, yesterday, I'd have struck that man down at a 
blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day I'd set 
my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!" 

The toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went 
on in a softer tone: 

"Did I consider," said the Carrier, "that I took her — at 
her age, and with her beauty — from her young companions, 
and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which 
she was the brightest little star that ever shone, to shut her up 
from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious com- 
pany.^ Did I consider how little suited I was to her sprightly 
humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be 
to one of her quick spirit ? Did I consider that it was no merit 
in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must 
who knew her.^^ Never. I took advantage of her hopeful 
nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married her. I wish 
I never had! For her sake; not for mine!" 

The toy merchant gazed at him without winking. Even 
the half-shut eye was open now. 

"Heaven bless her!" said the Carrier, "for the cheerful 
constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this 
from me! And Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have 



The Cricket on the Hearth 177 

not found it out before! Poor child! Poor Dot! I not to 
find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears when such a 
marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who have seen the 
secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never sus- 
pected it, till last night! Poor girl! That I could ever hope 
she would be fond of me! That I could ever believe she was!" 

" She made a show of it," said Tackleton. '* She made such 
a show of it, that, to tell you the truth, it was the origin of my 
misgivings." 

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who 
certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him. 

"She has tried," said the poor Carrier with greater emotion 
than he had exhibited yet; "I only now begin to know how hard 
she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good 
she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a 
heart she has; let the happiness I have known under this roof 
bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to me when I 
am here alone." 

"Here alone .^" said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you do mean 
to take some notice of this.^" 

"I mean," returned the Carrier, "to do her the greatest 
kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. I 
can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and 
the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can render 
her." 

"Make her reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and 
turning his great ears with his hands. "There must be some- 
thing wrong here. You didn't say that, of course." 

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant, 
and shook him like a reed. 

"Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that you hear 
me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly.?" 

"Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton. 

"As if I meant it.?" 



178 The Cricket on the Hearth 

"Very much as if you meant it." 

" I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed the 
Carrier. "On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with 
her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her whole life 
day by day. I had her dear self, in its every passage, in review 
before me. And, upon my soul, she is innocent, if there is One 
to judge the innocent and guilty!" 

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal Household Fairies! 

"Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Carrier; "and 
nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment some 
old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I, forsaken, 
perhaps, for me, against her will, returned. In an unhappy 
moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what 
she did, she made herself a party to his treachery by concealing 
it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It 
was wrong. But, otherwise than this, she is innocent, if there 
is truth on earth!" 

"If that is your opinion " Tackleton began. 

"So, let her go!" pursued the Carrier. "Go, with my bless- 
ing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgive- 
ness for any pang she has caused me. Let her go, and have the 
peace of mind I wish her! She'll never hate me. She'll learn 
to like me better when I'm not a drag upon her, and she wears 
the chain I have riveted more lightly. This is the day on which 
I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her 
home. To-day she shall return to it, and I will trouble her no 
more. Her father and mother will be here to-day — we had 
made a little plan for keeping it together — and they shall take 
her home. I can trust her there, or anywhere. She leaves me 
without blame, and she will live so I am sure. If I should die 
— I may perhaps while she is still young; I have lost some 
courage in a few hours — she'll find that I remembered her, 
and loved her to the last! This is the end of what you showed 
me. Now, it's over!" 



The Cricket on the Hearth 179 



"Oh no, John, not over! Do not say it's over yet! Not 
quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal 
away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with 
such deep gratitude. Do not say it's over till the clock has 
struck again!" 

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained 
there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon 
her husband. But she kept away from him, setting as wide a 
space as possible between them; and, though she spoke with 
most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even 
then. How different in this from her old self! 

" No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me 
the hours that are gone," replied the Carrier with a faint smile. 
"But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It's 
of little matter what we say. I'd try to please you in a harder 
case than that." 

"Well!" muttered Tackleton. "I must be off, for, when 
the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my 
way to church. Good morning, John Peerybingle. I'm sorry 
to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Sorry fox the 
loss, and the occasion of it too!" 

"I have spoken plainly.?" said the Carrier, accompanying 
him to the door. 

"Oh, quite!" 

"And you'll remember what I have said.?" 

"Why, if you compel me to make the observation," said 
Tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting into his 
chaise, " I must say that it was so very unexpected, that I'm far 
from being likely to forget it." 

"The better for us both," returned the Carrier. "Good- 
bye. I give you joy!" 

"I wish I could give it to you,'' said Tackleton. "As I 
can't, thankee. Between ourselves (as I told you before, eh.?) 
I don't much think I shall have the less joy in my married life 



i8o The Cricket on the Hearth 

because May hasn't been too oflScious about me, and too de- 
monstrative. Good-bye! Take care of yourself." 

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in 
the distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; 
and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken 
man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until 
the clock was on the eve of striking. 

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often 
dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how 
excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, 
triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that 
Tilly was quite horrified. 

*'Ow, if you please, don't!" said Tilly. "It's enough to 
dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please." 

"Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, Tilly," 
inquired her mistress, drying her eyes, — *' when I can't live 
here, and have gone to my old home.?" 

"Ow, if you please, don't!" cried Tilly, throwing back her 
head, and bursting out into a howl — she looked at the moment 
uncommonly like Boxer. "Ow, if you please, don't! Ow, 
what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, 
making everybody else so wretched.'^ Ow-w-w-w!" 

The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off at this juncture into 
such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long sup- 
pression, that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and 
frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), 
if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer leading in his 
daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the pro- 
prieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth 
wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby 
lay asleep, danced in a weird, St. Vitus manner on the floor, 
and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among 
the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those 
extraordinary operations. 



The Cricket on the Hearth i8i 

"Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!" 

"I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered Caleb. 
"I heard as much last night. But bless you," said the little 
man, taking her tenderly by both hands, " / don't care for what 
they say. / don't believe them. There an't much of me, but 
that little should be torn to pieces sooner than I'd trust a word 
against you!" 

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child 
might have hugged one of his own dolls. 

"Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said Caleb. 
"She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't 
trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. So we 
started in good time, and came here. I have been thinking of 
what I have done," said Caleb after a moment's pause; "I have 
been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to do, or where 
to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I've come 
to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay with me, mum, 
the while, tell her the truth. You'll stay with me the while .^" 
he inquired, trembling from head to foot. "I don't know what 
effect it may have upon her; I don't know what she'll think of 
me; I don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father after- 
wards. But it's best for her that she should be undeceived, 
and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!" 

"Mary," said Bertha, "where is your hand.'' Ah! Here 
it is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips with a smile, and drawing 
it through her arm. "I heard them speaking softly among 
themselves last night of some blame against you. They were 
wrong." 

The Carrier's wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. 

"They were wrong," he said. 

"I knew it!" cried Bertha, proudly. "I told them so. I 
scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!" she pressed 
the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. 
"No, I am not so blind as that." 



i82 The Cricket on the Hearth 



Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained 
upon the other, holding her hand. 

"I know you all," said Bertha, "better than you think. 
But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is nothing 
half so real and so true about me as she is. If 1 could be re- 
stored to sight this instant, and not a word were spoken, I could 
choose her from a crowd! My sister!" 

"Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb. "I have something on 
my mind I want to tell you while we three are alone. Hear me 
kindly! I have a confession to make to you, my darling!" 

"A confession, father.^" 

"I have wandered from the truth, and lost myself, my child," 
said Caleb with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. 
"I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; 
and have been cruel." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and re- 
peated "Cruel!" 

"He accuses himself too strongly. Bertha," said Dot. " You'll 
say so presently. You'll be the first to tell him so." 

"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha with a smile of incredulity. 

"Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. "But I have 
been : though I never suspected it till yesterday. My dear blind 
daughter, hear me and forgive me. The world you live in, 
heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have represented it. The eyes 
you have trusted in have been false to you." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but 
drew back, and clung closer to her friend. 

"Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said Caleb, 
"and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, 
changed the characters of people, invented many things that 
never have been, to make you happier. I have had conceal- 
ments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and 
surrounded you with fancies." 

"But living people are not fancies.^" she said hurriedly, and 



The Cricket on the Hearth 183 

turning very pale, and still retiring from him. "You can't 
change them." 

"1 have done so, Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There is one 
person that you know, my dove " 

"Oh, father! why do you say, I know.?" she answered in a 
term of keen reproach. "What and whom do / know.? 1 
who have no leader! I so miserably blind!" 

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, 
as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner 
most forlorn and sad, upon her face. 

"The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, "is 
with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and 
me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in his 
nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have painted 
him to you in everything, my child. In everything." 

"Oh, why," cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, 
almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever do this.? Why 
did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like Death, 
and tear away the objects of my love.? O Heaven, how blind 
I am! How helpless and alone!" 

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but 
in his penitence and sorrow. 

She had been but a short time in this passion of regret when 
the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to 
chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was 
so mournful, that her tears began to flow; and, when the Presence 
which had been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind 
her, pointing to her father, they fell down like rain. 

She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was 
conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering 
about her father. 

"Mary," said the Blind Girl, "tell me what my home is. 
What it truly is." 

"It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. 



184 The Cricket on the Hearth 

The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. 
It is as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha," Dot con- 
tinued in a low, clear voice, "as your poor father in his sack- 
cloth coat." 

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's 
little wife aside. 

"Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost 
at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trem- 
bling; " where did they come from ? Did you send them .?" 

"No." 

"Who, then.?" 

Dot saw she knew already, and was silent. The Blind Girl 
spread her hands before her face again. But in quite another 
manner now. 

"Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this way. 
Speak softly to me. You are true I know. You'd not deceive 
me now ; would you .? " 

"No, Bertha, indeed!" 

"No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity 
for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were just 
now — to where my father is — my father, so compassionate 
and loving to me — and tell me what you see." 

"I see," said Dot, who understood her well, "an old man 
sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his 
face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort him, 
Bertha." 

"Yes, yes. She will. Go on." 

" He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, 
dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despond- 
ent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, 
Bertha, I have seen him many times before, and striving hard 
in many ways, for one great sacred object. And I honour his 
grey head, and bless him!" 

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and, throwing her- 



The Cricket on the Hearth 185 



self upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her 
breast. 

"It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried. "I 
have been bhnd, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! 
To think I might have died, and never truly seen the father who 
has been so loving to me!" 

There were no words for Caleb's emotion. 

"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed the 
Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, "that I would love so 
dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, 
and more worn, the dearer, father! Never let them say I am 
blind again. There's not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair 
upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks 
to Heaven!" 

Caleb managed to articulate, "My Bertha!" 

"And in my blindness I believed him," said the girl, caress- 
ing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different. 
And having him beside me day by day, so mindful of me always, 
never dreamed of this!" 

"The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha," said poor 
Caleb. "He's gone!" 

"Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father, no! 
Everything is here — in you. The father that I loved so well; 
the father that I never loved enough, and never knew; the bene- 
factor whom I first began to reverence and love, because he had 
such sympathy for me, — all are here in you. Nothing is dead 
to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me is here — here, 
with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am not blind, 
father, any longer!" 

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this 
discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, 
towards the little Hay-maker in the Moorish meadow, she saw 
that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell, 
immediately, into a nervous and excited state. 



i86 The Cricket on the Hearth 

"Father!" said Bertha, hesitating. "Mary!" 

"Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is." 

"There is no change in her. You never told me anything 
of her that was not true.'^" 

"I should have done it, my dear, I'm afraid," returned 
Caleb, "if I could have made her better than she was. But I 
must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed her at all. 
Nothing could improve her, Bertha." 

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the 
question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed 
embrace of Dot, were charming to behold. 

"More changes than you think for may happen, though, 
my dear," said Dot. "Changes for the better, I mean; changes 
for great joy to some of us. You mustn't let them startle you 
too much, if any such should ever happen, and affect you. Are 
those wheels upon the road.? You've a quick ear. Bertha. 
Are they wheels.?" 

"Yes. Coming very fast." 

"I — I — I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, placing 
her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on as fast as she 
could, to hide its palpitating state, "because I have noticed it 
often, and because you were so quick to find out that strange 
step last night. Though why you should have said, as I very 
well recollect you did say. Bertha, 'Whose step is that.?' and 
why you should have taken any greater observation of it than of 
any other step, I don't know. Though, as I said just now, 
there are great changes in the world : great changes : and we can't 
do better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly any- 
thing." 

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke 
to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonish- 
ment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe ; 
and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. 

"They are wheels indeed!" she panted. "Coming nearer! 



The Cricket on the Hearth 187 

Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them stopping at 
the garden-gate ! And now you hear a step outside the door — 
the same step, Bertha, is it not? — and now !" 

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running 
up to Caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed 
into the room, and, flinging away his hat into the air, came 
sweeping down upon them. 

*'Is it over?" cried Dot. 

"Yes!" 

"Happily over?" 

"Yes!" 

" Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb ? Did you ever 
hear the like of it before?" cried Dot. 

"If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive !" 

said Caleb, trembling. 

"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his 
eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy. "Look at him! See where 
he stands before you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son. 
Your own dear living, loving brother. Bertha!" 

All honour to the little creature for her transports! All 
honour to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked 
in one another's arms ! All honour to the heartiness with which 
she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming 
hair, half-way, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but 
suffered him to kiss it freely, and to press her to his bounding 
heart ! 

And honour to the Cuckoo too — why not ? — for bursting 
out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a housebreaker, 
and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if 
he had got drunk for joy! 

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, 
to find himself in such good company. 

"Look, John!" said Caleb, exultingly, "look here! My 
own boy from the Golden South Americas! My own son! 



i88 The Cricket on the Hearth 



Him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself! Him that you 
were always such a friend to!" 

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoil- 
ing, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the 
Deaf Man in the Cart, said : 

"Edward! Was it you?" 

"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all, Edward; 
and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in 
his eyes, ever again." 

" I was the man," said Edward. 

"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old 
friend.?" rejoined the Carrier. "There was a frank boy once 
— how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was 
dead, and had it proved, we thought ? — who never would have 
done that." 

"There was a generous friend of mine once; more a father 
to me than a friend," said Edward; "who never would have 
judged me, or any other man, unheard. You were he. So I 
am certain you will hear me now." 

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept 
far away from him, replied, "Well! that's but fair. I will." 

"You must know that when I left here a boy," said Edward, 
"I was in love, and my love was returned. She was a very 
young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own 
mind. But I knew mine, and I had a passion for her." 

"You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. "You!" 

"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she returned it. 
I have ever since believed she did, and now I am sure she did." 

"Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse than 
all." 

"Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning, full of 
hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of 
our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was false 
to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed herself 



The Cricket on the Hearth 189 



upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to reproach her; 
but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that this 
was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it against 
her own desire and recollection. It would be small comfort, 
but it would be some, I thought, and on I came. That I might 
have the truth, the real truth, observing freely for myself, and 
judging for myself, without obstruction on the one hand, or 
presenting my own influence (if I had any) before her, on the 
other, I dressed myself unlike myself — you know how ; and 
waited on the road — you know where. You had no suspicion 
of me; neither had — had she," pointing to Dot, "until I 
whispered in her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly be- 
trayed me." 

"But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come 
back," sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned 
to do, all through this narrative; "and when she knew his pur- 
pose, she advised him by all means to keep his secret close; 
for his old friend John Peerybingle was much too open in his 
nature, and too clumsy in all artifice — being a clumsy man in 
general," said Dot, half laughing and half crying — "to keep 
it for him. And when she — that's me, John," sobbed the little 
woman — " told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed 
him to be dead; and how she had at last been over-persuaded 
by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear old thing 
called advantageous ; and when she — that's me again, John 
— told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), 
and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for 
there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad 
with joy to hear it, — then she — that's me again — said she would 
go between them, as she had often done before in old times, 
John, and would sound his sweetheart, and be sure that what 
she — me again, John — said and thought was right. And it 
WAS right, John! And they were brought together, John! 
And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here's the 



190 The Cricket on the Hearth 



Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And 
I'm a happy little woman, May, God bless you!" 

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to 
the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her 
present transports. There never were congratulations so en- 
dearing and delicious as those she lavished on herself and on 
the Bride. 

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier 
had stood confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched 
out her hand to stop him, and retreated as before. 

" No, John, no ! Hear all ! Don't love me any more, John, 
till you've heard every word I have to say. It was wrong to 
have a secret from you, John. I'm very sorry. I didn't think 
it any harm, till I came and sat down by you on the little stool 
last night. But when I knew, by what was written in your 
face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with Edward, 
and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how 
wrong it was. But oh, dear John, how could you, could you 
think so.^" 

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle 
would have caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't let 
him. 

"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! 
When I was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it Was be- 
cause I remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and 
knew that her heart was far away from Tackleton. You be- 
lieve that, now, don't you, John.?" 

John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she 
stopped him again. 

"No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I 
sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, 
and names of that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well, 
and take such pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you 
altered in the least respect to have you made a king to-morrow." 



The Cricket on the Hearth 191 



"Hooroar!" said Caleb with unusual vigour. "My opinion!" 

" And when I speak of people being middle-aged and steady, 
John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in 
a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little 
thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act as a kind of Play 
with Baby, and all that: and make believe." 

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But 
she was very nearly too late. 

" No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, 
John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. 
My dear, good, generous John, when we were talking the other 
night about the Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first 
I did not love you quite so dearly as I do now; when I first came 
home here, I was half afraid that I mightn't learn to love you 
every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I might — being so very 
young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I loved you 
more and more. And if I could have loved you better than I 
do, the noble words I heard you say this morning would have 
made me. But I can't. All the affection that I had (it was a 
great deal, John) I gave you, as you well deserve, long, long 
ago, and I have no more left to give. Now, my dear husband, 
take me to your heart again! That's my home, John; and never, 
never think of sending me to any other!" 

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious 
little woman in the arms of a third party as you would have 
felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was 
the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of 
earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. 

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rap- 
ture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be 
sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously 
for joy, and, wishing to include her young charge in the general 
interchange of congratulations, handed round the Baby to every- 
body in succession, as if it were something to drink. 



192 The Cricket on the Hearth 



But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the 
door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was 
coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, look- 
ing warm and flustered. 

"Why, what the Devil's this, John Peeryb ingle .? " said 
Tackleton. " There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackle- 
ton to meet me at the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the 
road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I beg your pardon, 
sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but, if you can do 
me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a par- 
ticular engagement this morning." 

"But I can't spare her," returned Edward. "I couldn't 
think of it." 

"What do you mean, you vagabond.^" said Tackleton. 

" I mean that, as I can make allowance for your being vexed," 
returned the other with a smile, " I am as deaf to harsh discourse 
this morning as I was to all discourse last night." 

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start 
he gave! 

"I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left hand, 
and especially the third finger, "that the young lady can't 
accompany you to church; but, as she has been there once this 
morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." 

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little 
piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring, from his 
waistcoat pocket. 

"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton, "will you have the kind- 
ness to throw that in the fire.^ Thankee." 

"It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, 
that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, 
I assure you," said Edward. 

"Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that 
I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, 
I never could forget it," said May, blushing. 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



193 



"Oh, certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh, to be sure! Oh, 
it's all right, it's quite correct! Mrs. Edward Plummer, I 
infer?" 

"That's the name," returned the bridgeroom. 

"Ah! I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackleton, 
scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. " I give 
you joy, sir!" 

"Thankee." 

"Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly to 
where she stood with her husband; "I'm sorry. You haven't 
done me a very great kindness, but, upon my life, I am sorry. 
You are better than I thought you. John Peerybingle, I am 
sorry. You understand me; that's enough. It's quite correct, 
ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good 
morning!" 

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off 
too: merely stopping at the door to take the flowers and favours 
from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once in the ribs, 
as a means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his 
arrangements. 

Of course, it became a serious duty now to make such a day 
of it as should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival 
in the Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot 
went to work to produce such an entertainment as should reflect 
undying honour on the house and on every one concerned; and, 
in a very short space of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in 
flour, and whitening the Carrier's coat, every time he came near 
her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. That good fellow 
washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, 
and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made 
himself useful in all sorts of ways : while a couple of professional 
assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbour- 
hood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all 
the doorways and round all the corners, and everybody tumbled 



194 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never 
came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the theme of 
general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the passage 
at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen 
at half -past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and- 
twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a 
test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, 
vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't 
come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. 

Then there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and 
find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that ex- 
cellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, 
to be happy and forgiving. And when the Expedition first 
discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an 
unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have lived 
to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else, except 
"Now carry me to the grave" : which seemed absurd, on account 
of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After a time 
she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that, 
when that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in 
the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, 
during her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; 
and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged they 
wouldn't trouble themselves about her, — for what was she ? — 
oh dear! a nobody! — but would forget that such a being lived, 
and would take their course in life without her. From this 
bitterly sarcastic mood she passed into an angry one, in which 
she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would 
turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, 
and said, if they had only given her their confidence, what might 
she not have had it in her power to suggest! Taking advantage 
of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition embraced her; and 
she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to John 
Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



195 



parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and 
quite as stiff, as a mitre. 

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come in another 
little chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were 
entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the 
road; and Mrs. Fielding always would look in the wrong and 
morally impossible direction; and, being apprised thereof, 
hoped she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased. 
At last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug 
and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the Dot family; 
and Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. 
They were so like each other. 

Then Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with 
May's mother; and May's mother always stood on her gentility; 
and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her active little 
feet. And old Dot — so to call Dot's father, I forgot it wasn't 
his right name, but never mind — took liberties, and shook 
hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but so much 
starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo 
Trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. 
Fielding's summing up, was a good-natured kind of man — 
but coarse, my dear. 

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wed- 
ding-gown, my benison on her bright face ! for any money. No ! 
nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of 
the table. Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his hand- 
some wife. Nor any one among them. To have missed the 
dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as 
man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which 
they drank The Wedding Day would have been the greatest 
miss of all. 

After dinner Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. 
As I'm a living man, hoping to keep so for a year or two, he 
sang it through. 



196 The Cricket on the Hearth 



And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, 
just as he finished the last verse. 

There was a tap at tlie door; and a man came staggering in, 
without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something 
heavy on his head. Setting this down in the middle of the 
table, symmetrically in tlie centre of tlie nuts and apples, he 
said : 

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and, as he hasn't got no 
use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it.'' 

And, with those words, he walked off. 

There was some surprise among the company, as you may 
imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, 
suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative 
of a cake which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary 
for young ladies blue. But she was overruled by acclamation; 
and the cake was cut by May with much ceremony and rejoicing. 

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another 
tap at the door, and the same man appeared again, having 
under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel. 

" Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for 
the Babby. They ain't ugly." 

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. 

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in 
finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had 
ample time to seek them. But they had none at all; for the 
messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there 
came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked in. 

*'Mrs. Peerybingle ! " said the toy merchant, hat in hand, 
"I'm sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morning. I have 
had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! I am sour by dis- 
position; but 1 can't help being sweetened, more or less, by 
coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This 
unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of 
which I have found the thread. I blush to think how easilv I 



The Cricket on the Hearth 197 



might have bound you and your daughter to me, and what a 
miserable idiot I was when I took her for one! Friends, one 
and all, my house is very lonely to-night. I have not so much 
as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them all away. Be 
gracious to me: let me join this happy party!" 

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a 
fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his life, never 
to have known before his great capacity of being jovial.? Or 
what had the Fairies been doing with him, to have effected such 
a change ? 

"John! you won't send me home this evening, will you.?" 
whispered Dot. 

He had been very near it, though. 

There wanted but one living creature to make the party 
complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very 
thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours 
to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone with 
the cart to its journey's end, very much disgusted with the 
absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy. 
After lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly 
attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of return- 
ing on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and 
laid himself down before the fire. But, suddenly yielding to 
the conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be 
abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and come home. 

There was a dance in the evening. With which general 
mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had 
not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, 
and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed in an odd 
way; in this way. 

Edward, that sailor-fellow — a good free dashing sort of 
fellow he was — had been telling them various marvels con- 
cerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when 
all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and 






198 The Cricket on the Hearth 

propose a dance; for Bertha's harp was there, and she such a 
hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affec- 
tation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; 7 
think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked 
sitting by him best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, 
but to say her dancing days were over, after that; and every- 
body said the same, except May; May was ready. 

So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to dance 
alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune. 

Well ! if you 11 believe me, they had not been dancing five 
minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes 
Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off 
with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner 
sees this than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round 
the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this than 
up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot into the middle of the 
dance, and is foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this than 
he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands, and goes off at score; 
Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the 
other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with 
them, is your only principle of footing it. 

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, 
Chirp; and how the kettle hums! 

w tT tT w "TT "Tr 

But what is this.^ Even as I listen to them blithely, and 
turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very 
pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am 
left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's 
toy lies upon the ground: and nothing else remains. 



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